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| Apollo (detail) by Lucienne Day |
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| Aquarius by Jacqueline Groag |
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| Variation by Paule Vézelay
My textile tour of London continued with a visit to the Fashion and Textile Museum and their exhibit Designing Women: Post-War British Textiles. It was a total inspiration. The bleak days of World War II era England all but disappeared with the revolutionary new designs produced in 1950s Britain - many by women. Large scale, abstract patterns presented in vivid hues heralded a new day in design and no doubt helped raise the spirits of millions of people who now decorated their homes and adorned their bodies with these colorful textiles. The most prominent designer exhibited was Lucienne Day who made a significant impact on the design world with her 1951 pattern Calyx. Among the other designers included were Jacqueline Groag, Marian Mahler, and Paule Vézelay whose work I particularly admired.
In addition to being introduced to several new (to me) textile designers, I learned a great deal in a small, adjacent exhibit titled "Creating a Printed Textile with Sanderson". Here, the many steps involved in creating a new textile were illustrated using Claire Hart's design "Hayward", pictured below. I was particularly fascinated to learn more about the roller printing process having only practiced with screen printing. With roller printing, the design is etched into large, heavy copper cylinders, or rollers (pictured below). The cloth will then pass through several rollers, one for each color in the pattern. While costly, the process allows for great lengths of fabric to be printed in a relatively short amount of time.
So much inspiration! I immediately bought a pack of colored pencils to start sketching on the plane. Visit this museum, and when you do be sure to enjoy a very good cream tea in their café (teapod@FTM), and pop into their small, but lovely museum shop (where I scored an amazing vintage dress decorated with illustrations of the Queen's Coronation for my
The Fashion and Textile Museum
83 Bermondsey Street
London
SE1 3XF
T: 020 7407 8664
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