Shawl
Pavlovo Posad Shawl Manufactory
Wool, silk, printed pattern

Large-scale production of printed headscarves took place in the Moscow region in the small town of Pavlovo Posad. This town became a major textile hub. Headscarves were manufactured here in several factories but the Yakov Labzin and Vassily Gryaznov factory played a particular role. Having effectively invented the folk headscarf, the factory in Pavlovo Posad owned by the merchants Labzin and Gryaznov became the largest producer of woolen headscarves and shawls. Sometimes the designs on printed shawls were still connected to the ornamental designs on woven headscarves but a huge number of original floral compositions were developed in this area of artistic manufacturing.

The growth of the textile business and chemical industry enabled the cost of shawl production to decrease so significantly that it had an impact on the sale price. If, to begin with, shawls could only be afforded by the rich, by the middle of the 19th century, they had already become widespread within the merchant class and the public. The major textile businesses in Russia were the Trekhgornaya textile mill, which was founded in 1799 by Vasily Prokhorvy and Fyodor Rezanov, as well as the factories run by the Baranovs family, the weaving and printing enterprises in Shuya, run by the Posylin merchants (which were renowned at the end of the 18th century), the Rubachevs factory in Shuya and businesses run by the Moscow fabric makers, the Guchkovs. The Pavlovo-Posadsky headscarf factory is still going strong, even after two centuries. This is the only ancient Russian headscarf factory still in operation to this day.