Stamping was a decorative technique, which involved heating up metal tools to emboss striking designs onto textiles and clothing in the 16th and 17th centuries. There exist examples of stamped textiles and clothing in museum archives today, these date from the 16th century to the middle of the 18th century and originate from England, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. It could be possible that this technique was in use as early as the 15th century.
From looking at these archive samples it becomes apparent that there are two distinct styles of stamping. The first is by using small individual tools in multiple repeats that decorated cloth such as silk satin and woven silk velvets.
From the lack of tools to examine that applied this technique onto textiles, it becomes likely that these tools were probably the same as those used in the process of blind tooling for book binding on leather which came into use between the 8th and 12th centuries but excelled in the 15th century.
These tools were made from metals such as bronze and brass, which were supple enough to sculpt designs into and also held high melting points. They were fitted with wooden handles so that they could be handled when hot. They would have varied in size and would each of had its own simple or elaborate design mastered in relief.
These tools would have been heated on hot irons until the right temperature was reached and then impressed onto the silk or velvet with a certain amount of pressure to ensure a clear imprint of the pattern was revealed. The craftsman would have to be quite accurate in judging the right temperature, if the tools were too hot then they could scorch and ruin silk, but by placing a damp piece of fine cloth upon the silk before stamping would then prevent the tools from making any unwanted marks.
It seems likely that tailors would have commissioned textiles to be stamped by skilled binders, whom in that period excelled in the art of blind stamping.
The second distinct way of stamping was the use of large-scale hot metal matrices, which bore decorative patterns in relief onto velvets. This was an economical way of stamping larger areas of cloth. The hot metal matrices would crush the pile and leave an embossed design on the velvet, which is still a popular technique used today.