Antimacassar – Wikipedia
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Small material positioned over the backs of furnishings
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An antimacassar is a small material positioned over the backs or arms of chairs, or the pinnacle or cushions of a settee, to stop soiling of the everlasting cloth beneath.[1] The title additionally refers back to the material flap ‘collar’ on a sailor’s shirt or high, used to maintain macassar oil off the uniform.
Macassar oil was an unguent for the hair generally utilized by males within the early nineteenth century, and reputed to have been manufactured from substances bought within the port of Makassar within the Dutch East Indies. The poet Byron referred to as it “thine incomparable oil, Macassar”.[2] The style for oiled hair grew to become so widespread within the Victorian and the Edwardian period that housewives started to cowl the arms and backs of their chairs with washable cloths to stop the material coverings from being dirty. Round 1850, these began to be often called antimacassars. They had been additionally put in in theatres, from 1865.
They got here to have elaborate patterns, typically in matching units for the assorted objects of parlour furnishings; they had been both made at dwelling utilizing quite a lot of methods akin to crochet or tatting, or bought. The unique antimacassars had been often product of stiff white crochet-work, however within the third quarter of the nineteenth century they grew to become less complicated and softer, often cloth embroidered with a easy sample in wool or silk.[2]
By the start of the twentieth century, antimacassars had develop into so related in individuals’s minds with the Victorian interval that the phrase briefly grew to become a figurative time period for it. For instance, antimacassars are suggestive of old school, Victorian-era ladies in Rebecca West’s novel The Return of the Soldier.[3]
Antimacassars are additionally used on the seat headrests of economic passenger transport automobiles, akin to trains, buses and, particularly, plane, to stop the transmission of hair dressings and situations between passengers, simplify upkeep, and lengthen the life of materials.
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