Pat Kane: Paisley cutting its cloth according to its cultural ambitions

“Now the line: ‘Is this one for Paisley’…”, says Jimmy B (who looks exactly like Super Mario). We’re doing production notes for the final version of the Hue And Cry song Looking for Linda. Jimmy is trying to translate us for the American audience: he’s chewing a pencil to death. “Is this, like, a reference to the 60s? They’re two old hippies having a nostalgia fling? What?”

No Jimmy, I say. Paisley is an actual town. In Scotland. Which the woman in question was escaping to. It’s where paisley cloth was made, historically… “No! I never heard that. Paisley is what we called it in the 60s. It’s the name of the pattern. Everybody knows that!”

Nowadays, you’d whip out the smartphone and deal with this in seconds. Back then, I had to hold Jimmy at bay until I could get a day free to go to the New York Public Library, photocopy the relevant encyclopedia page, and produce the truth triumphantly over the meatball parmigianas.

But I respectfully place this as one tiny pebble on the already substantial cairn of Paisley’s bid for UK City of Culture in 2021. There’s a lot more I can (and will) add on – but let’s dwell for a minute or two on how much Mr B got wrong there. And why it begins to justify a national cultural spotlight being turned on the town.

The very droplet symbol of the paisley pattern itself is dense with global history. In the Zoroastrian religion, combining a floral spray with a cypress tree, it represents “life and eternity” and has links to the Yin and Yang symbol. Right now, the boteh or buta is still hugely popular in Iran and South Central Asian countries; the droplet is woven into silks and wools for weddings and celebrations.

And how did the town of Paisley come to own this? A familiar mix of exploitation, appropriation and fascination. The Persian-made patterns became an elite hit in the 18th century, as the “silk roads” of imperial trading brought the cultures of the world to the West.

The textile revolution took up the pattern across Europe – but the Paisley story is especially fascinating because it seems as if intense innovation made it the market leader, thus claiming the crown of the brand itself. By 1860, Paisley was uniquely adapting its Jacquard looms to produce 15-colour shawls, while competitors were using five or less (though still only a quarter of the colours of the Kashmiri originals).

And finally, as the paisley pattern moved from being woven to being printed, it was caught up in the late 19th century Bohemian romance with the East – sold through the Liberty stores, beloved by William Morris, the Pre-Raphaelites and Art Nouveau. It ended up on the backs of The Beatles, Stones and Bowie, and has been used by Yves-Sant Laurent, Biba, Liam Gallagher and his Pretty Green clothing brand… not to mention inspiring Prince to name his record label and music complex after it (that’s the deal-clincher for me).

So not a simple or an unproblematic story – but as an element of a city of culture bid, surely a huge asset. Of course, the cultural entrepreneur in me is already buzzing with ideas for the Paisley bid (they’re no doubt already on someone’s long list).

How would you repeat the Harris Tweed success, with the return of loom weaving to Paisley, producing a new certificated cloth? What open and mutual dialogue could that open up with the original Persian and Asian weavers, in a way that redresses and addresses the exploitations (but also fascinations) of the past? Another idea: is this how you get Prince Rogers Nelson to pay a visit to the Buddies’ town – by presenting him with the first new entirely Paisley-woven suit for hundreds of years?

But this is the kind of thinking these kinds of awards are intended to provoke. That is, to encourage urban areas to value and curate their historic cultural impact on the world – then mix that up with present opportunities and strengths in the area, both to raise the spirits and ambition of residents as well as attract the kind of high-end businesses that love to do work in beautiful old buildings and centres (which Paisley, as a consequence of its manufacturing era, is blessed with).

Call me a member of the creative classes – and I’ve been called a lot worse – but that’s actually how Paisley has directly engaged with me over the last decade or so. I doubt I’ve had a more transcendent moment than listening to my daughter singing in the choir at Paisley Abbey – and whatever you think of cathedrals, they are spaces built to encourage aspiration upwards and contemplation inwards.

The town’s beautiful Thomas Coats Memorial Baptist Church is set to close, as is St James’s, due to a declining congregation. I hope the Buddies’ can figure out a way to connect these places to cultural exploration and expression, beyond the usual concerts and weddings, or conversion to wine bars.

My other high-cultural connection with Paisley is actually with its University of the West of Scotland campus. Some of the most interesting academic thinkers I know are in post, or have passed through there – currently the radical economist Mike Danson and the political analyst Gerry Hassan, but also recently Andy Miah, one of the world’s leading experts on how humans are being bodily transformed by technology and science. The UWS website shows a real research hustle-and-bustle around engineering and social sciences.

And in the midst of that Paisley campus sits one on the great Scottish eccentric enterprises – the workshop of Sandy Stoddart, “the Queen’s official sculptor in Scotland”. I visited him once on behalf of a radio show and the place is a wonder. It’s like some mad dream of a Hollywood producer from the 50s and 60s, fantasising that those fibreglass busts of classical figures are somewhere being chipped and smoothed out of granite. Well, here they are.

Does Sandy sit comfortably in the current cultural conversation in Scotland? Not in the slightest. His recent UWS lecture was titled The Fallacy of Progress – and he blames “progress” for a lot. “The extension of credit to those unable to repay is paralleled in the extension of another sort of credit to those unable to draw.”

Ooft! Jaikets off at the Glasgow School of Art. This painstaking sculptor of Adam Smith, David Hume and others, selling and trading globally, is about as philosophically conservative a figure as Scotland harbours. But there he is, populating the world with statues from a couple of storerooms on a campus in Paisley. If you can’t string that pearl along a stretch of Coats thread…

I’m not blithe here. In the face of structurally induced poverty and unemployment, cultural regeneration has its limits.

An annual city spotlight, no matter how cleverly performed under, only begins to turn the minds of representatives, policy makers and citizens towards different arguments – about what’s valuable and purposeful to do in a post-industrial age town or city.

A more cultural and less market-oriented society is one way Scotland could healthily adapt to major world trends like climate change, demographics and automation. That’s a huge discussion, requiring a deep rethink about national priorities and government action.

Even as a thought starter, the Paisley bid is obviously worth the effort. Maybe if the Jacquard looms rattle again, I will present Mr Biondolillo with a set of Paisley-pattern dungarees, Super Mario style. For which he may or may not thank me.

For more on Paisley’s City of Culture bid for 2021, go to www.paisley2021.co.uk.

Pat Kane is a musician and writer (www.patkane.today).