Mandalay: The Old Bleach Fish that Swam Off an Irish Loom

A shoal of fish moves across pale blue linen, caught mid-turn, scattering bubbles as it goes. This is Mandalay, the pattern gracing the subscriber wrapper of Selvedge Issue 131, Flow, and it was designed around 1935 by a young Northern Irish designer named Felix Corry Gotto for the Old Bleach Linen Company. Reversible and woven, the fabric captures a moment when a century-old linen firm decided to gamble everything on contemporary design.

Archival Old Bleach Linen Company promotional postcard. Image: Irishman Lost.

Old Bleach, established by Charles James Webb, had been producing linen in Randalstown since 1864, built on the kind of household staples that keep a mill running: tablecloths, towels, embroidered goods in patterns so traditional they barely changed from decade to decade. Its name came from its production method. Rather than bleaching cloth with chemicals, workers laid the woven linen out across the fields and let sun and rain do the work over weeks, a process as slow as it was reliable.

Miniature linen towel embroidered in red thread with crowned GRI monogram. Made for Queen Mary's Dolls' House, 1924. Image: Royal Collection Trust.

By 1925, that reputation had reached the society pages. On 28 January 1925, The Tatler devoted a full page to the firm's contribution to Queen Mary's dolls' house, writing: "The beauty of Old Bleach is in the fabric itself. It is woven from pure Irish flax and bleached by the old tried ways of sun and grass. That is why its lovely lustre survives laundering after laundering."...

(...)

Want to read more of this article?
We are proud to be a subscriber-funded publication with members in 185 countries. We know our readership is passionate about textiles, so we invite you to help us preserve and promote the stories, memories, and histories that fabric holds. Your support allows us to publish our magazine, and also ‘what's on’ information, and subscription interviews, reviews, and long-read articles in our online blog. 

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? CLICK HERE TO ACCESS CONTENT

Or, to continue reading….


Magazine subscribers automatically get free access to all our online content. We send the access code by email with the publication of each issue. You will also find it on the envelope containing your magazine. Please note the access code changes every issue. 

. . .

Image Credits:

Lead: Mandalay, by Felix Corry Gotto for the Old Bleach Linen Co. Ltd., 1935.

All further images as credited in captions.