May 12 2025 - Liberty of London

 

Liberty of London is a luxury department store in London dating from 1875.  The store's interior was made from the timbers from two ancient battle ships.  The decks were used for the flooring.  In all, there was 24,000 cubic feet of ship timbers.   My thoughts of Liberty are around its fabric print design and production.  Liberty used the finest silks and cottons in the making of its beautiful floral designs.  Liberty prints were readily available in Toronto in the 1970s into the 1980s.  But those stores are now gone - Eaton's, Simpsons, and the Hudson's Bay.  standalone fabric stores are gone from regular shopping places.  There is a single Fabricland in St. Catharines on Welland Avenue, and that is unusual.  I went online to see if they still make the prints that I had worn.  Yes, there is one of my favourites - poppy and daisy still available.  It is part of Liberty Fabrics’ Classics collection which started in 1979, created to champion the most well-known and iconic designs from the Liberty archive all year around.   And the price?  It is $62.00 a metre at 1.36m width.  Ouch if you wanted to make anything to actually wear. Here's are the Editor's Notes:  Poppy and Daisy is a fine-lined and meadowy layout, which has been part of the Liberty archive since the 1910s. An archetypal Liberty floral, it would have originally been a wood block print. Our Tana Lawn™ cotton is a fabric built by obsession, perfected into a modern masterpiece of production through a bespoke process that has evolved over a century. Printed in our very own Liberty Printing Mill, located between Milan and Lake Como in northern Italy, Tana realises unmatchable fluidity with a silk-like touch, unique print quality and striking colour vibrancy. Machine washable and durable enough for daily wear, it can be used to create everything from simple separates to spectacular statement pieces. Here's the screen print of the lovely design.

And this picture?  A print from Liberty Village in Toronto.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

mar 16 2023 - Gingham

 

Gingham check is a rigid structure and I wondered how it came about.  Only two tones - a bright colour and white in a square check.  Usually it is a medium-weight cotton or cotton-blend (today).   Tthe name is so distant in the past that it is thought to originate from a fabric made at Guingamp, a town in Brittany, France.  So the fabric is named after the town. It somehow started as a striped fabric when it was imported into Europe in the 17th century.   Today it is relegated to decorations in Michael's Craft Stores and country-style, but in the past it was the material of shirts, skirts, dresses and for kitchen towels.  I can't think of gingham without considering houndstooth checks.  It too is a duotone textile pattern.  It is more sophisticated with broken checks.  It is traditionally in black and white. This is a Bronze Age pattern - 1500 to 1200 BC.  It was famously found in the Swedish peat bog dating from 360 to 100 BC. In Europe in the 17th century it was used for woollen tweed rugs, outer garments and to carry lambs by shepherds.  Over time it became a luxury pattern and Coco Chanel cemented that in the 1920s. And doesn't that lead down the road to argyle, tartans, twills and tweeds? Considering more shapes, the beautiful paisley named after the Scottish town comes into view. Here's my own version of a plaid/check used to overlay an image of the tree out front. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca