"Garden of the Gods" colorways (3), Mallinson's National Park series

Description:

Three sample lengths of printed "Khaki Kool," Mallinson tradename for a rough finish sport silk: Rough surface crepe fabric woven with warp of tussah silk and weft of tussah loosely twisted with a silk crepe yarn. Selvage width; selvage inscription. Printed with National Park series "Garden of the Gods" design; in three different color combinations (on grounds of white, orange, and mauve). In late 1926 American silk manufacturer H. R. Mallinson & Co. introduced a bold new line of printed silks, twelve landscape designs, each available in from eight to twelve colorways (color combinations) on three different ground fabrics. The designs celebrated America's National Parks - then only a decade old. The designs represented all the usual styles necesssary for making clothing: allover prints, horizontal stripes, checks, a border design, etc. These samples illustrate how strikingly different a single design can appear by changing the colors of the ground and design elements.