A SWATCH of the iconic Paisley Pattern has been successfully blasted into space in a world first.

A piece of the fabric several inches in size was placed inside a capsule on board the Space X Falcon 9 rocket on the CRS-9 mission from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station launched just before 6am yesterday.

Once up, it will orbit the planet at speeds in excess of 17,000mph around 220 miles above Earth on a journey of more than 15 million in total over the next six weeks.

When the rocket returns to Earth, the swatch will be recovered and brought back to Paisley where bosses on the town’s bid for UK City of Culture 2021 hope to put it on display.

WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO SEND THE FAMOUS PATTERN INTO SPACE?

IT WAS the brainchild of Paisley man Andy Campbell, who is the commercial director of the International Space Station Educational Trust (ISSET).

The ISSET is an organisation which brought a week-long Mission Discovery space school programme to Scottish schools last month, led by NASA astronauts.

It gave more than 200 young people from schools in Renfrewshire, Inverclyde and East Renfrewshire the chance to learn at first hand from NASA’s approach to science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) along with leadership, team building and personal development.

Campbell said: “I’ve been fortunate to be working with ISSET for a number of years now and the work they do sending school experiments into space is amazing.

“We’ve run Mission Discovery in Paisley for three years now and given the town’s bid for UK City of Culture 2021, I thought it would be a great idea to organise a swatch of Paisley pattern from the museum to be sent into and returned from space.

“The pattern is a global success, this way it will get to orbit the planet.”

His idea was welcomed by Renfrewshire Council Provost Anne Hall who said it was time the Paisley pattern “conquered the galaxy”.

She added: “The Paisley pattern has already carried the town’s name around the world – now it’s conquered the galaxy too.

“Things like this are a great way to remind people of Paisley and Renfrewshire’s connections with the rest of the world and of what the area has to offer residents and visitors alike.

“For example Paisley already has a great vantage point from which to enjoy a view of the stars, with Coats Observatory one of the few remaining public observatories in Scotland.

“I look forward to being able to welcome the piece of pattern back to Paisley once it has been recovered from its epic journey.”

WHERE DID THE PIECE OF CLOTH COME FROM?

THE patch of pattern came from a shawl held by Paisley Museum as part of a special reserve to the main collection set aside specifically for research purposes.

Paisley Museum is a three-star visitor attraction located in the heart of Paisley. It is a stunning Victorian museum that is home to a whole host of treasures from the Shawl Collection, to one of the best ceramics collections in the country.

Paisley is famous for the world-renowned Paisley Pattern and the Paisley Shawl collection is a Recognised Collection of National Significance to Scotland. In 2014, a Loom Gallery was created to showcase original hand looms that were used to produce the cloth.

WHAT’S THE HISTORY OF THE PAISLEY PATTERN?

THE word “Paisley” is world famous as the name of the teardrop or tadpole shape pattern, used on everything from haute couture to a whole range of everyday domestic goods and gift items. It is perhaps less well known as the name of a large burgh or town in Scotland.

The pattern did not actually originate in the town and only became associated with Paisley after a long journey through time and across oceans and continents.

The Paisley Pattern can be traced back to the Indo-European cultures of more than 2,000 years ago.

In Britain, the pattern is represented in Celtic art, which died out in Europe under the influence of the Roman Empire.

However, in India the motif continued to flourish in many different art forms. It was first used on shawls in Kashmir, and examples of this work were brought back to Britain by the East India Company in the mid 18th century.

Shawls quickly became the vogue, but they were in short supply and enormously expensive. As a result, they were imitated by British textile manufacturers who sold them for a tenth of the price.

The Indian motif itself was reinterpreted and developed to conform to European taste. The impact was dramatic. Imitation Indian shawls were so popular that the weaving centres in Edinburgh, Norwich and Paisley were swamped with orders. For 70 years the patterned shawls remained fashionable, and the term ‘paisley’ became renowned throughout the world.

Paisley became the epicentre, where more shawls were produced than anywhere else, for weaving shawls and, as a result, Paisley became the generic term for the pattern. The first shawls woven in Paisley were made around 1808, and by 1850 there were 7,000 weavers in the town.