Today’s post will be about the origin of the names of Chintz of Alcobaça – Collection Elipas: both its designations and brand created by engineer Elísio Sopas. Read until the end for many other curiosities!
In our article Chintz of Alcobaça, a Cultural Heritage at Risk we talked about the story of the Portuguese chintz and we’ve revealed that although its name indicates that it is from Alcobaça, its production was, in fact, initiated in the 18th century in the regions of Lisbon and Porto.
This article follows one other article about chintz of Alcobaça in the 20th century, where we introduced you Elísio Sopas, the pioneer of the recovery of the patterns Alcobaça, by daring to restart producing old patterns of the 1950s, as well as his son, engineer Elísio Sopas that, in the 1980s took this heritage one step ahead by taking the chance with entrepreneurism and passion.
We underline that today’s post complements the article The Unique Story of Chintz of Alcobaça in the 20th Century, which we recommend you read first.
Without further due, let’s find out the origin of the names of Chintz of Alcobaça – Collection Elipas chosen by engineer Elísio Sopas.
The Origin of the Names of Chintz of Alcobaça by Engineer Elísio Sopas
In 1983, Engineer Elísio Sopas inherited his father’s textile sale business in Porto after his death.
He started by recovering the chintz of Alcobaça pattern that was very successful in the 1950’s and that was reintroduced in the market by Elísio Sopas (father) when its production was basically nonexistent.
He created an exclusive collection of chintz of Alcobaça, calling it Collection Elipas, which merges the three first letters of Elísio and the last letters of the surname Sopas, to honour his father.
In addition to that, he named every pattern that he brought back to life. Each one of them has a short and curious story behind it…
Pattern ALCOBAÇA: it was the first pattern recovered by his father, but it was engineer Elísio Sopas that named it Alcobaça, because it was commonly known by their clients as “your design from Alcobaça”.
Pattern D. LEONOR: firstly, this name has an affective reason behind it, as Leonor is the oldest daughter’s name of Elísio Sopas (son). Secondly, it also refers to queen Leonor, who was linked to Caldas da Rainha, a city close to Alcobaça.
Pattern CAMPINA: a pattern that engineer Elísio Sopas particularly liked. It was a design that featured pheasants, turkeys, chicken and roosters, but that had feathers on their heads. In Elisío Sopas’ (son) reproduction of the design, he replaced the crest for combs, giving it a more Portuguese style. According to him, he believes that this fabric is of Dutch origin, due to the fowl’s appearance.
Pattern PAIÃO: this design features fruit baskets and is called Paião – the father’s hometown. This is perhaps one of the patterns in which inspiration from the Far East is more evident.
Pattern LORMOIS: Elísio Sopas found this pattern and had the idea of choosing the name Lormois to honour the French engineer who brought the woodblock printing techniques to Portugal.
Pattern SHANGRI-LA: this design already existed in Elísio Sopas’ (father) time. As described in James Hilton’s novel, the land of Shangri-La was where things don’t age and time doesn’t exist. To engineer Elísio Sopas, chintz of Alcobaça too are eternal.
Pattern COLIBRI: the original version featured doves, but Elísio Sopas decided to add hummingbirds.
Pattern COLMEIA: this was a pattern that featured a bee skep, but worried that this would be a lesser-known term, the engineer ended up naming it Colmeia (bee hive).
Pattern VIANA: it was taken from the pattern of the skirt of a girl on a painting, likely Flemish, whose author Elísio Sopas doesn’t know. This name was chosen because the design featured hearts that reminded him of the filigree hearts of Viana do Castelo.
Unmissable Curious Facts
Chintz of Alcobaça’s Colours
One of the characteristics of almost all patterns of chintz of Alcobaça, is that the background colour is the only one that changes, while the colours of the designs stay the same. For instance, the pattern Alcobaça has six variations of colours: yellow, beige, maroon, blue, pink and green.
And the pattern D. Leonor, that unfortunately isn’t produced anymore, even had eight different colour variations.
The Curious Reason Behind the Removal of Birds
The first chintz of Alcobaça recovered by Elísio Sopas (father) in the 1950s was a hit.
At the time, the Armazém dos Linhos had a lot of clients in Lisbon – fabric shops that for the most part no longer exist. These clients brought something to notice.
According to superstition, feathers brought misfortune. For this reason, Elísio Sopas (father) decided to remove them from the design.
As this popular belief waned, the birds featured in the new designs were kept. This was the case of the patterns Lormois, Campina and Colibri.
Today, we can find birds in the pattern Alcobaça.
The Woodblock Printed Fabric “Pombalino”
In the 1950s, in addition to the design 1 and 2 of chintz of Alcobaça, the Armazém dos Linhos sold other woodblock printed fabrics that weren’t related to the chintz patterns. The pattern Pombalino, named by Elísio Sopas (father), was part of that collection.
Today, Pombaline is many times mistakenly believed to be chintz of Alcobaça.
Collection Portuguese Villages
Pattern Belmonte
Pattern Monsanto
Pattern Monsaraz
Engineer Elísio was very successful in the reintroduction of chintz of Alcobaça in the market, but at a certain point there was a need to create other patterns in order to stimulate demand. Thus, the collection that included the patterns Belmonte, Monsanto and Monsaraz – portuguese villages – was born.
This line features old designs but that aren’t patterns of chintz of Alcobaça. Just like Pombalino, they’re also many times mistaken for chintz of Alcobaça.
False Alcobaça
It’s a pattern called Laços (bow). It was a design that engineer Elísio Sopas found among some sketches that his father had probably ordered from someone. Because he liked it, he adapted it to the style of the pattern Alcobaça. But it isn’t Alcobaça…
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Viana, an Excellent Pattern for Christmas
Every year around Christmas time clients would look for new patterns suitable for this time of the year in the engineer’s warehouse. However, there was a year in which none of the suppliers’ proposals were to his liking. This led him to having the brilliant idea of ordering made tablecloths with the red version of the pattern Viana. Given the excellent result, this could’ve only have been a success.
This was a beautiful combination of creativity with the versatility of chintz of Alcobaça!
Now that we’ve reached the end of this article, we can only say that it was a great privilege to getLISBON to have the opportunity of revealing to its readers the origin of chintz of Alcobaça’s names by engineer Elísio Sopas, to whom we are thankful for his amiability and time.
With one more fragment of the story of chintz of Alcobaça written, we hope to contribute to both the appreciation and revitalisation of this unique product that reflects the Portuguese culture and heritage.
The project getLISBON has been very rewarding and we want to continue revealing the singularities of fascinating Lisbon.
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