Saturday, March 26, 2016

Collection SS2016: Mythiques Phoenix Coloriages


The legendary phoenix, mount of the gods, is a gigantic, fabulous bird, thought to live for hundreds of years before consuming itself in flames, to be reborn in a nest of myrrh and incense.  The ancient Greeks associated its name (phoinix) with the date palm, a symbol of fertility and longevity. 



The creature seems to emerge from the centre of the carré, surrounded by the date palm’s foliage and fruit.  Transformed by its new colour treatment, the composition resembles a sophisticated colouring book.  Like an allegory of re-birth, colour takes its place around the central bird of paradise.  Already, the head is flooded with colour and new life.  Gradually, black and white give way to an inrush of colour.  The phoenix rises from the ashes.


Saturday, March 19, 2016

Collection SS2016: Modernisme tropical


The first carré from Sao Paulo-born artist Filipe Jardim captures ‘his’ Brazil – a Brazil of the imagination and reality, too, with its distinctive, resolutely modernist architectural landscape. 

The richly-detailed, vibrant composition superimposes the curves of Brasilia (the new capital, inaugurated in 1960) and the strict, angular forms of the Paulista school, a grouping of architects from the city of Sao Paulo.  But Brazil is a jungle nation, too – the mata atlantica is the country’s Atlantic tropical forest.  Banana, aloe vera, and alocasia leaves are entwined in this astonishing, seductive portrait.


Saturday, March 12, 2016

Collection SS2016: Under The Waves


 Alice Shirley pays tribute to the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s biggest coral reef, off the coast of Queensland in northern Australia.  The reef is the largest living organic structure on Earth.  It features on UNESCO’s World Heritage list, and is home to a fascinating abundance of fauna. 

The living coral ‘sculptures’ attract a multitude of marine species, in an endless ballet of forms and colours.  The sea turtle swims to Milman Islet, a small island off the far north of Queensland, to may its eggs.  The leafy sea dragon takes shelter among the fronds of seaweed, while the mandarin fish busies itself hunting for plankton.  Each owes its existence to the fragile balance of this extraordinary ecosystem.


Saturday, March 5, 2016

Collection SS2016 : Maitres de la Foret


With the lightest of touches, Annie Faivre’s carré expresses the full force of nature: the vital energy and burgeoning growth of the plant kingdom.  Plants and trees – the monarchs of the forest – form a dense, awe-inspiring ensemble, reaching ever-upwards to the light. 

Stems, leaves and flowers recall the finesse of traditional Kashmiri motifs, created by Indian weavers for the infinitely soft woollen shawls adopted by fashionable European women from the mid-18th century onwards.  



French textile companies were quick to follow suit, creating their own versions.


The version below, knotted, reminds me of the Jardin de Leila somehow