Oľga Danglová
The once famous Cotton Mills in Ružomberok, originally the largest cotton mills in the whole Austro-Hungarian monarchy, would have been celebrating the 120th anniversary of their foundation this year. During their existence there were periods of stagnation and boom. Following the year 1989 the works had undergone unsuccessful privatisation and what was left was only a drastically reduced company.
A very successful period of the enterprise were the 1970’s when the production of textile designs was dominant. Many of them were made on the basis of adapting traditional motifs applied in blue print. The machine design of „blue prints“ had a more clearly drawn outline and, with regard to the technical production parametres, could create smaller patterns. It also made use of chemical ingredients which had resulted in even more freedom in the design of the coloured pattern combinations. As opposed to blue print, it could extend the colour scale to as many as 16 colour combinations.
The industrial production of the Ružomberok cotton „blue prints“ had a good response not only on a mass scale, but also with designers and fashion designers looking for more demanding forms of clothes usage. It used to win laurels at international shows of textile production.