FROM ROADSIDE
TO
RUNWAY
A HISTORY OF CHENILLE
IN FASHION
By the end of the twentieth century, though, fueled by nostalgia and a re-use mentality, designers
and crafters nationwide began repurposing and reimagining chenille in fashion, making new
garments from old bedspreads and manufacturing bathrobes with updated designs.
Ashley Callahan
26 ORNAMENT 34.4.2011
B
y the late 1920s travelers on the Dixie Highway, a popular
route from the upper Midwest to vacation sites in
Florida, witnessed line after line of chenille bedspreads
fluttering in the wind along the side of the road as they drove
through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northwest
Georgia. They also passed numerous Civil War battle sites and
local landmarks, as well as motor camps, filling stations, and
restaurants established for the tourist market. The chenille
spreads and related articles of clothing, many with multicolored
peacock designs, inspired memorable nicknames for the route,
including Bedspread Boulevard and Peacock Alley, and their
market quickly expanded from roadside stands and laundry
lines to stores throughout the country.
This humble material plays an important role in the history
of the modern tufted textile industry. The often-told story of
the industry’s genesis begins in northwest Georgia with a young
woman named Catherine Evans (Whitener, 1880-1958) who
saw an antebellum candlewick coverlet (a form of whitework
embroidery) owned by a cousin in 1892 and a few years later
decided to make her own. She developed a method of placing a
clean cotton sheet over a finished spread and rubbing it with a
greased tin pan to transfer the design, which she then stitched,
clipped, washed, and fluffed. As interest in her spreads grew,
she employed others to help with the process. During the first
decades of the twentieth century, more women in the Dalton
area began doing the same, and as prosperity became evident,
men entered the business. By the mid-1920s the cottage
industry supplied spreads to major department stores across
the United States. Through ever-increasing mechanization
during the next several decades, the bedspread industry evolved
into the carpet industry for which the region, and the town of
Dalton in particular, is now well known.
This romantic tale, told with such frequency that it has
achieved near mythical status, appealed to a nation enthralled
by the Colonial Revival, a style that influenced architecture,
furniture, travel, and many other aspects of daily life for much
of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Products
related to such all-American figures as Evans and to regions
commonly associated with the country’s colonial origins, such
as Appalachia (popularly perceived as inhabited by individuals
of pure Anglo-Saxon heritage), thrived in a culture desiring
to adorn its homes with materials connected to America’s past.
Chenille arrived at a fortuitous time.
The use of chenille (also called candlewicking or tufting)
in clothing and fashion accessories developed out of the
bedspread industry and began in earnest as the manufacturing
emphasis shifted from handwork to machine production.
Chenille’s first stage of mechanization involved a single-needle
CHENILLE ROBES AND BEDSPREADS hanging on the line at the home of the Halls, 1945. Collection of Joanne Hall Garner,
courtesy of Abbie Tucker Parks.
34_4_Chenille.4.indd 26
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34_4_Chenille.4.indd 27
Clockwise from the upper left: MRS. RALPH HANEY WEARING A
CHENILLE KIMONO with a peacock design, circa 1920. Courtesy
of Georgia Archives. Vanishing Georgia Collection, gor466.
VINTAGE POSTCARD OF HAMLIN’S CHENILLE SHOP, Dania,
Florida, n.d. Collection of the author.
APRONS, n.d., cotton, left to right: 72.4, 73.7, and 78.7 centimeters
long. (Left) Private collection, (middle and right) collection of
Sandra Loose-Schrantz and Peter Loose. Photograph by the author.
the market compared to the sales of bedspreads.3 The Vanishing
Georgia Photographic Collection documents one such
kimono, worn by Exzene Carter Haney (circa 1894-1962) of
Calhoun, Georgia. The hand-tufted peacock design is white
(or a light color) on a darker ground. Unlike the brightly
colored peacock bedspreads and robes for which the area
became famous, this is a more restrained interpretation of the
motif. Local tradition maintains that the peacock design
developed as a means of using up bits of leftover threads—
perfect for vibrant feathers and eye-catching garments—but
the peacock image was popular with several late-nineteenthcentury design movements (Aestheticism, Arts and Crafts and
Art Nouveau), and this early-twentieth-century kimono may
simply reflect a holdover of this influence. The kimono form
itself also suggests a link to late Victorian design, which took
much inspiration from Japan, as well as to the early-twentiethcentury Orientalism trend in fashion.
Peacocks also appeared on chenille aprons, another item
sold along the roadside. A journalist from Oklahoma, who
27 ORNAMENT 34.4.2011
gun used by an individual to embroider a pattern. Inventors in
the Dalton area then developed multineedle machines that
tufted spreads more quickly. The Dalton News credited Anne
Brown, who founded Fireside Handcraft Company, with being
the first to employ the bedspread machines to create robes and
coats in 1935: “In the beginning Mrs. Brown made her coats
by hand, doing her own designing as well, and discovered that
she could sell all that she could turn out. In fact she could not
keep up with the orders that started coming in so she turned
to chenille machines…”1 Chenille fashion expanded quickly
from simple roadside souvenirs to requisite fashion accessories
and in 1946 one executive noted that he had even seen chenille
tufts on brassieres.2
The popularity of chenille in fashion progressed in parallel
to its vogue in bedspreads, rising for several decades, then
fading as tastes and tools changed in the late 1950s and 1960s.
As bedspread technology transitioned into carpet technology,
a few innovators applied the new tufting processes to fashion,
creating carpet handbags, hats and coats in the late 1960s and
1970s, but the huge profits in wall-to-wall carpeting eclipsed
all else. By the end of the twentieth century, though, fueled
by nostalgia and a re-use mentality, designers and crafters
nationwide began repurposing and reimagining chenille in
fashion, making new garments from old bedspreads and
manufacturing bathrobes with updated designs.
One of the earliest mentions of fashion-related chenille
appeared in 1925 in the Dalton Citizen, which noted that
kimonos and other “companion pieces” were a minor part of
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28 ORNAMENT 34.4.2011
HOMER LEE HALL poses between two unidentified customers with
peacock and butterfly aprons, circa 1945. Collection of Joanne
Hall Garner, courtesy of Abbie Tucker Parks.
ROBE, “Wedding Cake” pattern, label reads: “Canyon Group/
Beverly Hills,” circa 2000, cotton, 153.7 centimeters long. Collection
of Sandra Loose-Schrantz and Peter Loose. Photograph by the
author with José Blanco and Raúl Vázquez.
BACK OF ROBE WITH PEACOCK DESIGN, circa 1950s, cotton,
144.8 centimeters long. Collection of Sandra Loose-Schrantz
and Peter Loose. Photograph by the author with José Blanco
and Raúl Vázquez.
34_4_Chenille.4.indd 28
traveled to Atlanta in 1935 to cover a baseball game, wrote
enthusiastically about the colorful spreads, “bath mats, aprons,
pillow covers and such truck” along the way.4 He likely saw a
scene similar to that in the Homer Lee Hall photograph, where
a row of aprons, decorated with peacocks and a butterfly,
appears on a line in front of several bedspreads. Some
department stores also sold aprons, including Kann’s in
Washington, D.C., which advertised handmade candlewick
aprons with “peasant” designs in 1934, and the Hecht
Company, also in D.C., which advertised candlewick aprons
with floral designs in 1943.5
In 1934 the New York Times ran an article by fashion
editor Virginia Pope on easy-to-wash summer dresses made
of familiar materials. The dresses included one from
Czechoslovakia made of a tablecloth material and one of a
bedspread-like cotton fabric, with burnt orange and yellow
tufts. Pope described the origin of this second dress: “Down to
the mountains of Tennessee went expert designers from New
York. Armed with measurements, patterns and instructions,
they directed the women who for years had industriously
tufted bed spreads…” She also described several other dresses
as well: “They come in white with tufts in two shades of blue,
or yellow and burnt orange. Brown on a yellow ground makes
another combination.”6
An article the following year in the Christian Science
Monitor notes that in 1935 muslin was newly popular for
fashionable summer day dresses, and praises the material for
its affordability. The author adds that many women “prefer it
in its natural state, enlivened by touches of ‘candlewick’
tufting,” and describes an unbleached muslin dress that her
friend made with olive green and dull orange candlewicking
yarn. She concludes, “The delightful thing about these
candlewick dresses is that you are given the opportunity to
become your own designer.”7
Chenille dresses also appeared in Boston shops the following
two years. In 1936 one received favorable notice in the Christian
Science Monitor: “The candlewick dress at Plotkin Brothers. It
really is tufted! And trimmed with fringe. Entirely different…”8
And in 1937 another Boston store, Leed’s, offered a “unique
candlewick dress,” which came in “beige with wine, green or
black blops of the candlewick, or oxford with gray dots.” 9
Chenille dresses, always somewhat of a novelty, did not stay
long on the fashion scene, but as easily washable, readily
customizable items made from inexpensive materials, they
are emblematic of Depression-era fashion interests.
Chenille jackets and boleros enjoyed a brief vogue from the
late 1930s through about 1940, though manufacturers
produced them into the 1950s. Jackets came in a variety of
styles and lengths, from fingertip to ankle. The predominate
decoration was stripes of tufts, most often white on white. While
both jackets and boleros typically were categorized with leisure
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CAPE WITH ANCHOR DESIGN, circa 1940, cotton, 96.5 centimeters
long. Private collection. Photograph by the author with José
Blanco and Raúl Vázquez.
BACK OF CAPE WITH SAILBOAT DESIGN, circa 1940, cotton, 78.7
centimeters long. Collection of Sandra Loose-Schrantz and Peter
Loose. Photograph by the author with José Blanco and Raúl Vázquez.
HAMBURGERS, vintage photograph of a group at Long Beach,
California, with a woman named Alma Ament wearing a chenille
cape, August 1940. Collection of the author.
34_4_Chenille.4.indd 29
29 ORNAMENT 34.4.2011
clothing, advertisers promoted them for a variety of uses, from
m
beachwear to formalwear.
Actress and singer Deanna Durbin wore a red, white and
blue fingertip length chenille coat with bell sleeves and pocketss
over her bathing suit in 1939.10 Also in 1939, the Washington
Post invited a popular debutante, singer and photographer, Peggyy
Townsend, to provide wardrobe ideas appropriate for resorts
or the New York World’s Fair and she suggested that, “Forr
added chic, nothing could pack more easily than a chenille
beach lumberjacket which is as short as a chorus girl’s skirts.”111
Janet Treat Hobbs promoted chenille jackets that summer as
well, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, “For a summerr
jacket that can be worn at the beach in the morning, on the
clubhouse porch if you find a coolish afternoon, and then on
into the evening to top your sheer white evening gown, we’ll
take one of those chenille jackets.” She added that they came in
white and tubbed as easily as the bedspreads.12
Beach capes, made out of a wide variety of materials
including crêpe de chine, terrycloth, rubberized silk, and linen,
became fashionable in the early 1920s as swimsuits became
more revealing. Capes provided a warm wrap after a cool dip in
the water and stylish protection from sunburns. Their
popularity naturally followed the evolution of swim culture,
rising during the 1930s as interest in swimming increased
with the national craze for physical fitness, and declining as the
United States entered World War II and oceans brought to
mind images of submarines and battles.13
Chenille capes, available in both fingertip and knee lengths,
were popular during the same period as chenille jackets,
primarily the late 1930s, and were promoted as appropriate for
use on the beach (where they could be spread on the sand like
a towel) or with eveningwear. Most featured rows of tufts on a
large circular cape with a cord tie at the neck, occasionally
with a collar or hood. Some included novelty designs, often
nautically themed, including fish, anchors and sailboats. White
was a popular color, sometimes in combination with red and
blue, though capes came in many colors, including aqua, maize
and pink, and often were multicolored.
The chenille cape’s popularity benefited from being worn
by starlets, including Susan Hayward, who was photographed
in one in 1938, and Priscilla Lane, who wore a matching chenille
beach cape and swimsuit with a flying fish design in 1939.14
The popularity of chenille capes peaked around the time of the
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1939 New York World’s Fair,
where
Gimbels department store
w
promoted chenille bedspreads,
and where attendees could
purchase a fair-themed cape,
decorated in red and blue on
white with the fair’s iconic
trylon and perisphere.15
Murray E. Wyche, who
wrote a history and assessment
of the southern tufted textile
industry in 1948, explained that,
as with the early bedspreads, the
beachwear chenille items “first had to win their place on
‘Bedspread Boulevard,’ ” where they found considerable
favor, “particularly with Florida-bound tourists.” Wyche also
addressed their decline, noting that chenille beachwear and
capes, because they were made of a heavy yarn, “were not so
adaptable to the hot Southern sunshine,” and eventually lost
favor with consumers.16
Of the many forms of chenille fashion, the robe was
manufactured on the largest scale and remained popular the
longest. Though hand-tufted robes likely existed in the 1920s,
machine-manufactured robes hit the market around 1935 and
remained there until at least the late 1960s, though their
popularity began to decline in the early 1950s.17 Like capes and
jackets, chenille robes also enjoyed Hollywood connections.
For example, in 1938 Katharine Hepburn wore a yellow chenille
robe with a “high-shaped collar, loose raglan sleeves and a
sweeping circular skirt” by costume designer Robert Kalloch.18
As with capes and jackets, chenille robes, made for women
and children, were advertised as appropriate for beachwear in
the late 1930s. Promotion of chenille robes eventually shifted
towards exclusively lauding their qualities as indoor items, and
by the early 1950s, they were viewed as appropriate attire to
wear while watching television.
Many early robes were collarless with cord ties at the waist,
though the wrap-around style robe with a wide shawl collar,
a belt tie, and bell sleeves became the convention. Most
included a large pocket near the right hip. As the popularity of
chenille robes began to decline, manufacturers sought to
retain a strong market by offering them in a variety of styles,
with the three-way duster (worn loose, tied at the waist, or
tied in the front and loose in the back) outselling the traditional
robe by the late 1950s.19
Advertisers promoted qualities such as plush fluff, deep
pile, close tufting, washability, and wide skirts. Chenille robes
came in a rainbow of colors, with blues and pinks being
especially popular. Some colors gained in prominence over
time, such as gold, while others, such as white, gradually lost
favor. Before the war some robes featured two-tone designs,
and after the war, many included scroll or multicolor floral
overlay patterns. Wyche explained that machines that could
make yardage of chenille fabric, found in most bedspread
plants by 1948, could only sew straight lines, and that
manufacturers used single needle machines to add overlay
designs.20 Children’s robes often sported novelty motifs such
as animals, nursery rhyme figures, cowboy imagery, and
Disney characters.
Most robes were cotton, though a few companies
experimented with rayon and some later robes incorporated
glittery metallic yarns. Manufacturers strove to make the
cotton as supple as possible, and a writer for the Christian
Science Monitor praised the chenille robes at a Boston shop
for having “enough sheen to them to make it look almost like
silk.”21 Wyche explained that “baby chenille,” often mentioned
in period advertisements, made robes “softer and lighter” by
employing 4-ply yarn, compared to the 9- or 10-ply yarns
used in earlier robes.22 By the mid-1950s, the fashion emphasis
shifted from “traditional tufted types in which the lines of
tufting are spaced farther apart,” to fabrics with close tufting
resembling corduroy or terrycloth.23
Rather than being offered in department and clothing
stores, the iconic peacock robes sold primarily along the
roadside to tourists. Cheryl Wykoff, who compiled
information on the history of chenille in 1989, wrote that the
30 ORNAMENT 34.4.2011
VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPH of child wearing a chenille robe and holding a chenille toy, n.d. Collection of the author. VINTAGE POSTCARD
of Tufts Woodland Motel & Chenille Co., Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, n.d. Collection of the author.
34_4_Chenille.4.indd 30
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VINTAGE POSTCARD of J. A. Keller Chenille Company, Dalton, Georgia, n.d. Collection of Sandra Loose-Schrantz
and Peter Loose.
SUGGESTED READING
Adkins-Ramey, Pamela. The Dancing Fibers of Peacock Alley. Exhibition brochure
Athens, Georgia: Lyndon House Arts Center, 2007.
Deaton, Thomas. Bedspreads to Broadloom: The Story of the Tufted Carpet Industry.
Acton, Massachusetts: Tapestry Press, 1993.
Drivin’ the Dixie: Automobile Tourism in the South, tour guide. Society for
Commercial Archeology, 1998.
Patton, Randall L. and David B. Parker. Carpet Capital: The Rise of a New South
Industry. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999.
34_4_Chenille.4.indd 31
Tufted Textile Manufacturers Association Directory. Published annually 1950-1964,
continued 1965-1968 as the Tufting Industry Review.
FOOTNOTES
1. “Fireside Handcrafts Specializes in Coats, Robes, Novelties,” Dalton News, February
29, 1940.
2. He was referring to tufted halter playsuits. Wylly Folk St. John, “Georgia Bedspreads
Cover the Country,” Atlanta Journal Magazine, September 8, 1946, 16.
3. “The Hand-Tufted Spread Industry,” Dalton Citizen, September 17, 1925.
4. “Oklahoma Editor Amazed at ‘Washing on the Line’ in Bedspread Belt,” Dalton
Citizen, October 10, 1935.
5. Advertisement, Kann’s “Smart Hand-Made Candlewick Aprons and Hoovers,”
Washington Post, November 22, 1934 and Advertisement, Hecht Co. “Aprons Go
High-Hat,” Washington Post, August 25, 1943.
6. Virginia Pope, “Tub Styles,” New York Times, May 13, 1934.
7. “Beach—Bicycling—Sports Frock: Three-in-One Outfit of Unbleached Muslin,”
Christian Science Monitor, July 10, 1935.
8. “In and About Boston Shops,” Christian Science Monitor, October 6, 1936.
9. “Here and There in Boston Shops,” Christian Science Monitor, September 13, 1937.
10. Sheilah Graham, “Deanna’s Playtime Outfit Includes Chenille Coat,” Atlanta
Constitution, April 18, 1939.
11. Marshall Adams, “Peggy Townsend Lists Outfits For July 4th,” Washington Post,
June 29, 1939.
12. Janet Treat Hobbs, “Here and There in the Shops of the Boston Retail District,”
Christian Science Monitor, July 14, 1939.
13. Richard Martin and Harold Koda, SPLASH! A History of Swimwear (New York:
Rizzoli, 1990), 29, 64, and 82.
14. “Slenderizing Lines,” Washington Post, May 20, 1938 and “Blouse and Apron For
Sport Toggery,” Atlanta Constitution, February 19, 1939.
15. “Blue Ridge Spreads Selected by Gimbels New York for New York World’s Fair
Chenille Bedspread Exhibit,” brochure, collection of Whitfield-Murray History Center
& Archives and Worthopedia, www.worthpoint.com, which documents a cape sold on
eBay November 3, 2007.
16. Murray E. Wyche, Chief, Atlanta Bureau, Fairchild Publications, “The Tufted
Textile Industry in the South,” 1948, typed manuscript in the collection of WhitfieldMurray History Center & Archives, 15.
17. Wyche, 6.
18. Sheilah Graham, “Katharine Hepburn’s Chenille Robe Combines Comfort and
Style,” Atlanta Constitution, June 20, 1938.
19. “Tufted Bathrobes Take on a New Look,” Dalton Citizen, March 14, 1958.
20. Wyche, 11 and 16.
21. Janet Treat, “Here and There in the Shops of Boston,” Christian Science Monitor,
February 1, 1939.
22. Wyche, 16.
23. Margot Herzog, “Greater Style and Comfort,” Tufted Textile Manufacturers
Association Directory, 1954 (Dalton, Georgia: Tufted Textile Manufacturers
Association, 1954), 75.
24. Cheryl Rose Wykoff, “Tufted Bedspread Sampler,” March 4, 1989, typed manuscript in the collection of Whitfield-Murray History Center & Archives, 4.
25. Advertisement, Davison’s Basement, Atlanta Constitution, June 12, 1940.
26. Advertisement, Art-Rich, reprinted in Tufted Textile Manufacturers Association
Directory, 1952, (Dalton, Georgia: Tufted Textile Manufacturers Association, 1952), 59.
31 ORNAMENT 34.4.2011
peacock “was not a design that was sold by the bigger
manufacturers but was associated with Highway 41 [the Dixie
Highway].” She interviewed Ann Hamilton, of Dalton, who
recalled that “It was a great joke around Dalton … that so many
of the tourists bought those flamboyant Peacock spreads….
We thought they were not pretty and they weren’t very well
designed.” 24 Their folk aesthetic, though, makes them a
favorite with collectors today.
The Southern heritage of chenille robes remained a strong
point of promotion both with manufacturers in the
Dalton area as well as with retailers and other manufacturers
nationally and internationally. An advertisement for a
department store in Atlanta in 1940 hailed a beach robe as
being “genuine Georgia-made chenille.” 25 Art-Rich
Manufacturing Company, a robe manufacturer based in
Dalton with showrooms in New York, added paper tags to
their robes stating, “This CHENILLE ROBE is made where the
Candlewick Tufting Industry Originated.”26 A mid-century
postcard from Tufts Woodland Motel and Chenille Company
in Wisconsin prominently advertises that their chenille is
Southern. In the twenty-first century, the chenille robe
manufacturer Canyon Group, whose robes have appeared in
numerous Hollywood films and television shows, still touts its
Dalton connections even though its labels indicate that their
robes are made in California.
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