The history of cushions

Cushions are pieces of materials covered with fabric and stuffed with wool or straw or some sort of spongy soft material. These cushions would be used for sitting on or as a decorative object in someone’s home. These were used often and all through the ages and in the earliest years they were used to show social status and wealth.

The first cushions were most properly used as something to hold your head up with, this was used in the roman times make sure that your hair was not messed up whilst you slept. However these pillows would probably not been very comfy and made out of hard material to make sure that your hair was not messed by the morning. 

Pillows were then used by very wealthy men in Asia these were used to lounge on and relax. Cushions would only really be used by very wealthy men in this time as luxury fabric and fabric dyes would be very expensive so were very hard to afford. These cushions would be shown as pieces or art themselves and would have been shown in people’s houses. 

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Pillows were also used in the medieval time as a decorative object in their houses they were used by the gentry in the big grand houses. In this period the cushions were made out of leather. These would be placed on seats for when the lord and the lady of the house would come home. These pillows as they were expensive were only used by people with some kind of status. The same as in Asia with only high status men using them. They showed aristocratic authority. 

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Cushions then were then used like this until times when fabric and dyes were a lot cheaper they were then used to decorate a room and also used as something comfy to sit on or hold yourself up with. Now day’s cushions are used to mainly decorate rooms e.g. on the sofa or on the bed when it is made to make the room look good. 

In the 70’s and 80’s cushions were used for this purpose they were bold and used in any room to make a big statement, around this time many interiors were big and bold and very un-matching these cushions would have been the same. Now days cushions are also used for this purpose but maybe more matching to the interior of the room or to make any plain sofa look good and more interesting.