COLOURED DAMASKS

Since time immemorial, the peoples of the Mediterranean basin, such as Italy, France, Greece and Spain, have been involved in their religious festivities, clearly reminiscent of the Roman Empire with its consensual games or the Saturnalia. Myrtle, cypress branches, palms, native flowers and coloured fabrics have become elements of a temporary architecture for the event in question, leaving the city adorned with a harmonious and not at all artificial beauty.

We have seen this in various 19th-century paintings, for example, by Sorolla and later in black and white photographs. In places as far away as Seville and Palermo, the decorative motifs were very similar, if not identical.

Jávea has been no stranger to this enthusiasm for decorating streets and homes. Despite its overexposure to tourism, it is one of the few places in the Valencian Community that still uses the old damask bedspreads made with natural silk thread. A splendid brocade of plant figures covers the balconies in the heart of the town. It is no coincidence that this noble fabric is the one used. Jávea, a town of patricians of very ancient lineages, has always distinguished itself from other places with specific patrician details, such as the fact that until a few decades ago, the trousseau of the future bride and groom was made of damask silk.

It was very popular and widespread during the 19th century, and we can still observe the houses; in their curtains, bedspreads, and the furniture upholstery. But it is the bedspreads or blankets, which are kept in wooden or cardboard boxes and are exhibited on the railings of balconies in each procession to accompany the march with their slow and majestic swaying produced by the air and the sound of their wooden tassels.

There is a hidden code in each practice, a set of rules, and a protocol followed from generation to generation. Firstly, the colours. Cool tones such as blue, green or purple are exclusively reserved for hanging in houses that are mourning the death of a family member: the other colours, mainly burgundy, strawberry and gold, for all others. And secondly, the fabric must be damask, domàs in Valencian. As we have indicated above, most houses inherit these coverings from their ancestors.

These hangings have also been used throughout social events for school inaugurations, visits of personalities, weddings...

Like everything in life, sometimes a little, subtle warning in time can stop a future disaster, and this is why in the year 2022, we see many houses in the town are no longer inhabited. In others, some new inhabitants are unaware of this singularity and do not have their blankets to complete the snake of colours that every street in the town centre becomes for the corresponding festivity. That is why at Jessica Bataille The Lifestyle Company, we take care to spread these customs and look after them to maintain them not only as part of the DNA of the place to which we belong but also as an ethnographic and Mediterranean fact, a way of life and a ceremonial language.

We want to study, catalogue and propose that these Jávea customs be perpetuated and that those who do not know them be caught by this tradition regardless of the beliefs of each and helped by the institutions; we can bring these fabrics to the homes that, for whatever reason, now do not have them.