The producers of European shawls sought to copy Indian designs with a technique that was more in keeping with European traditions. In the early nineteenth century, the drawloom was the only European loom capable of producing the curved motifs typical of Kashmir shawls. This was accomplished through the use of an overhead harness which applied considerable tension to the warp threads. The goat's fleece used in Kashmir was not only rare and costly, it was also too weak to endure the tension of the overhead harness. Stronger and more readily available silk, or silk wrapped in wool, was thus used for the warp threads of early European shawl production.

European drawlooms, and later Jacquard looms, wove au lancé, a technique that passed the four or five different colored pattern wefts from selvage to selvage. This technique left the weft threads, which might be wool, cotton or silk, to float on the back of the piece when not needed for the decoration on the right side. The weavers could leave the wefts floating, or they could trim them, a process that could reduce the weight of a shawl as much as fourfold. Trimming the floats also weakened the weaving. Thus, aesthetic consideration apart, discriminating customers tended to prefer Oriental shawls, whose wefts were interlocked, making their decorated sections much stronger.

European imitations of Kashmir shawls were almost always woven au lancé. Examining the back of a shawl and its weaving technique thus provides an easy way to determine the Eastern or Western origin of a piece.