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Left: American, 1811-1817. The Bixby Vine and Drapery pattern is similar to patterns printed by Moses Grant, Jr. during the same period but it is thought that the document of this pattern is a contemporary copy.
Right: English c.1765, reproduced from fragments discovered in West St. Mary's City, Maryland; the original document is part of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation collection.
Many people admire things of the past. For those in the design field, the study of these bygone eras informs the work of the present day. While researchers, historians and design enthusiasts respect and pay homage to the sensibilities of other times, most do not undertake the challenge of reviving an entire art form. By founding Adelphi Paper Hangings in the United States in 1999, Chris Ohrstrom and Steve Larson have defined themselves as the latter: the rarity that steps beyond admiration and into practice.
Based in New York State, Adelphi was created to preserve the knowledge and techniques of traditional wood block printed wall coverings. The idea for the company grew out of a symposium on historic building practices. Attendees agreed that these printing methods needed preserving. By combining hand, block, paper and paint, the artisans at Adelphi set out to create historically accurate wall coverings that used classic forms and colourways to enhance myriad spaces: historic, contemporary and in between.
Born out of reverence for traditional manufacturing and motifs, the company has successfully reproduced papers from the 1740s-1930s since its inception. The use of authentic ingredients and procedures enables Adelphi’s employees to work in the same manner as the artisans who produced the original papers. Dating from 1720 to the 1860s, the pre-Industrial Revolution printing methods are only slightly modified to take advantage of modern advancements. The binder in the distemper paint used for printing has been altered for ease of hanging and maintenance, and workers also use a higher quality paper that provides longevity and consistency for the product.
Co-owner Steve Larson emphasises the importance of hand printing: “It’s quite different than screen or digital printing. Block printed wallpaper is deliberate, physical.” Larson continues: “Each member of our small but highly skilled staff is involved with the various steps of the process: drafting patterns, mixing paint, grounding and printing.” The process of
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Uniformly dressed DEIRDRE MCSHARRY RECALLS THE RULES OF RESPECTABILITY
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It’s not a word you hear often today, respectable, but I am old enough to recall the word's power, the necessity of looking respectable. Getting dressed to ‘Go Out’ was like arming for war – gloves, heels, proper coat, stockings with seams, hair done and if possible a hat. Untidy clothes were as bad as loose morals. From the age of seven, when I made my First Communion dressed in white, everything worn in public had to be immaculate. As I was already boarding in a convent I understood the rules. From the smallest pupil in her tunic to the Mother Prioress in her medieval robes we were all uniformed.
The girls at my convent school called my mother ‘The Merry Widow’. It was wartime Dublin and as a young widow she was expected to wear mourning black. She did so with dash. There was perhaps, a shade too much diamante at ear and throat. Underneath was a satin slip and lace suspenders. The ‘respectable’ court shoes had silver heels. Kid gloves were crushed to show the wrist. The hat was swathed in a veil that made the most of the maquillage and tinted hair. The nuns clustered round my Mum and begged her to help them make costumes for the school plays. Thank God she – a working mum! – appeared to play by the rules.
As did we as devout convent girls: veils for Mass, hair scraped back or plaited tight. Skirts were long, drooped over Liberty bodices, knitted stockings and knickers down to the knee. A bony hand would often check after we dressed that we had not pulled up the elastic to make them short. Skirts must cover our heels when kneeling. Complaints garnered the retort “Who is looking at you anyway?” This was puzzling as we dressed to be deemed “respectable” and have that respectability noticed.
With a mother who edited a woman's magazine inevitably I ended up in the business. Commenting on what women wore and why became a way of life and I grasped that the ‘uniform’ is always with us. From the age of 13 I had aped the New Look in a mini corset and skirt I made from a circle of felt. It stuck in my bike wheels but saw me through college.
When, later, a journalist friend took me to meet his mother, a Fleet Street columnist, I noted her suit, hat, camellia pinned to lapel, typing with red nails and thought: I could do that. Get the uniform, get the job.
In the New York of the Fifties the uniform was paramount. I arrived in the offices of Women’s Wear Dailyin my Donegal tweed suit, brown court shoes and (laddered!) stockings. It all had to go. Suit too hot for central heating, shoes and ladders too tacky for my editor. New etiquette: black leather accessories for winter, black patent for summer, white gloves and tight tailoring for slogging down Seventh Avenue.
By the early Sixties the young president's wife, Mrs Kennedy, influenced by French designer Givenchy – and her mantra to "look like a column" – created a new etiquette. The old uniform morphed into the Jackie Look. And very useful that bouffant/pillbox/gloves/soft suit get-up proved to be for working girls everywhere. Until the Sixties began to shake and swing.
In Paris I saw singer Sylvie Vartan on stage with Johnny Hallyday in a dress like a nightie, while back in my London office Twiggy twirled in little boy shorts and a Fairisle knitted by her mum. She liked skimpy skirts and showing her knickers. Toothy smile and freckles. Suddenly posh models looked old – and out. Mini and skinny was the news.
With skirts at crotch level stockings and suspenders were redundant. In came tights. The body suit followed as transparency became the rave, followed by a torrent of styles from Boho hippy to Courreges' space style. At the Paris collections I recall seeing a gang of New York fashion editors dressed as Montenegran peasants.
Those were heady times. The old certainties were crumbling. The availability of tights coincided with the arrival of birth control pills and the dishwasher. All three advanced the cause of women's liberation. We got better jobs. Made our own rules. Stopped worrying about class and wore what was comfortable. Symbols of respectability? In a world of jeans for everybody who needed them?
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Left: American 1810-1820. This folksy paper, American in design, was found in an upstairs bedchamber in the home of Ada Harris, a legendary antiques dealer from upstate New York.
Right: French c.1800-1815. This simple pattern was found on a wedding box made in Paris in May 1804; the box is now in the collection of the Musee de Papier Peint, Rixheim, France.
reproducing a paper takes many months.
Beginning with a small scrap, or – if luck is on their side – a whole roll, Adelphi’s researchers are challenged to recreate the pattern or colours. In many instances, the original colour and design of historic papers is not easy to determine. Tattered and torn swatches, sheets and scraps often reveal only partial patterns. The mystery is solved through research, evaluation and restoration, but also through the artisans’ familiarity with papers that share a kinship. This careful analysis and production has earned the trust and respect of the museum and design community worldwide over the past two decades.
Through careful work, Adelphi has amassed a library of American, English and French patterns. A look through its inventory is a history lesson in design trends of the last 200 years. For Steve the lasting appeal of the designs lies in the fact that they are “specific, genuine and haven’t been diluted to conform to modern tastes.” Classics such as stripes, geometrics, damask, and chintz anchor the range. Iconic motifs of laurel, Greek key and medallions have a familiar, timeless style.
Adelphi shares insights and backgrounds of the papers on its website. Because of the company’s extraordinary abilities, it has also obtained licensing agreements with many well-respected archives and museums such as The Smithsonian Institution and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in the United States, and the Musée du Papier Peint in France.
Utilizing historic patterns, colours, tools and methods, Adelphi is able to reproduce the best of the past for the present. Even though printing has changed dramatically and modern methods are quicker, easier and cheaper, the company does not long for other means to an end. Instead, its commitment to the craft is exemplified in the finished product: beautiful, honest and authentic works of art worthy of living in rooms of all ages; rooms where the art is the wall. Rinne Allen and Lucy A. Gillis
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Joy to behold THE DECORATIVE STYLE OF KAFFE FASSETT
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Abundance is a lovely word and one that lends itself to descriptions of Kaffe Fassett’s London home. Exuberance follows close on its heels, as this is a space where colours, textures and techniques join forces to create a virtuoso display of creativity.
In this interior the enthusiasm for pattern and colour is tangible – in the form of hundreds of paintings, pots and textiles – and contagious. Artfully arranged collections draw you in: a shelf of vegetable-shaped ceramics raises a smile and lets you know that this is a place where beauty is enjoyed and interacted with on a daily basis. Nothing is behind glass or in cabinets.
Without pausing to reflect you might begin to use phrases such as ‘a riot of colour’ – but wait. Yes, this is a house like no other, objects are gathered on a larger scale than usual – why have three needlepoint cushions when you can have thirty-five? (The answer might be that abundant means ‘full to overflowing’). Nevertheless there is a peaceful centre to the profusion and it is Kaffe himself. A man who expresses himself in measured tones and has a patient, thoughtful air. It doesn’t quite make sense. A glance through his new autobiography shows that this is a man who, in design terms, hit the ground running and has never stopped. Really he should be charging around, issuing orders and trying to balance the five or six projects he has on the go. Instead, the day we visit he is at his easel taking five minutes to finalise a new design. In twenty minutes a car will arrive to take him and his partner, Brandon Mably, to a photoshoot with Bruce Webber. For now it’s a chance to do what he loves best, work with colour. “Colour is my most passionate obsession,” he admits, and no one who has stepped past his intricately mosaicked front porch could doubt him.
Kaffe was born in San Francisco in 1937. He spent much of his youth in Big Sur, California, where his parents bought a log cabin from Orson Welles and tranformed it into the famous Nepenthe restaurant, a gathering place for artists. At the age of 19 he won a scholarship to the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston, but left after 3 months to paint in London. He settled in England in 1964.
A kaleidoscope of ventures have taken place in the 48 years since that arrival. One of the first was a trip to a Scottish wool mill with fashion designer Bill Gibb, see issue 26. There he bought Shetland wool and some knitting needles, and on the train back to London a fellow passenger taught him how to knit. Knitting is one of the crafts Kaffe is most famous for, but other media attract him too. Samples of his needlepoint (Kaffe designs needlepoint kits for Ehrman Tapestries) are scattered throughout the house including a huge pile of cushions in the living room. Everything he designs is made up and the collection spans decades and a spectrum of styles. Keeping record of the prodigious output is something of a problem and the top floor of the house has become an informal archive. In the future it is hoped the s e l v e d g e . o r g
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String section LIZ HOGGARD UNRAVELS THE WORK OF MARYROSE WATSON
“Wrapping is an instinctive process for me,” says weaver Maryrose Watson. “I am interested in concealment and constraint but also protection and defence.”
Watson, who graduated with First Class Honours in Textile Design from Chelsea School of Art in 2010, is making a name for herself with her exquisite wrapped wall pieces. Moving away from the “restrictions” of cloth as a functional product, Watson experiments with wrapping, overlapping and intersecting layers of yarn directly around a frame.
After selling out her degree show twice over to private collectors (University of the Arts London also commissioned one for their permanent collection) she was snapped up by London's Sarah Myerscough Fine Art gallery. In May she was one of the stars of Collect at the Saatchi Gallery, exhibiting in the Crafts Council's Project Space area. Architects and designers were drawn by the modern grid structure of her work. But there is also a real painterliness to her colour palette.
Having studied constructed textiles her work challenges established concepts of weave. She works off loom and lays both warp and weft simultaneously, but her work draws inspiration from the traditional craft practice of dyeing and weaving. She explores the interaction between horizontal and vertical lines – teasing them into rectangles, ovals, diamonds. One piece is a brilliant circle of red threads. Another is made up of decreasing blue rectangles on a yellow background – with single orange threads laid across like an elegant spider's web. “I wanted to create free movement across the finished piece, to add an element of risk and spontaneity.”
By applying her own mathematical formulae to the intersecting layers of yarn, geometric forms emerge. Wrapping a tiny section of maybe five threads can completely change the design, she explains. “You create a curve by increasing the number of threads gradually or you can turn it into an oval. I've learned that to get a right angle, the same number of threads have to cross. These structures react with light to create a constantly changing visual experience, intensified as the observer moves around the work.”
Watson hand-dyes her own yarns so she can fine-tune colour combinations to create specific resonance and contrast. Her early work is full of deep scarlets, ochre, blues and purple. “Though I always add a touch of black so the primary colour is greyed off a bit.” 4
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Taking different forms throughout the centuries, concepts of respectability strike an awkward balance between contemporary religious values, the standards of the socially aspirational classes and fashion. Frequently what is daring and forbidden in one generation becomes standard and socially necessary within the next two, before finally being relinquished except by the oldest and most stalwart of a social class.
‘Respectability’ is a relatively recent concept, reflective of class choice in the consumer age. Before mass production and mass marketing, myriad laws and conventions controlled dress. Without the correct social status, even earning enough or having the skills to create the latest styles was useless as it was a breach of the law to wear them. It was relatively rare to be prosecuted under sumptuary laws unless the infraction was grave; but budding fashionistas would certainly think twice because of the abuse and opprobrium heaped upon them by their neighbours.
It was not respectable to attempt to dress beyond one’s means. To the Medieval mind, it denied donations that could otherwise go to the church to be given to the poor of the parish. Moreover, to attend church with one’s head uncovered showed an almost blasphemous lack of respect – something that Queen Elizabeth I held in check with a ruling that it was only decent for the lower orders to wear woollen caps. Made of the surfeit of British wool, it was also an excellent way of ensuring the success of the wool trade.
Seventeenth century Puritans were concerned with dressing modestly, advocating only the soberest colour palette, the simplest lace and the minimum of adornment. As the burgeoning ‘moral majority’ they loudly decried the indecency of the noble classes’ taste for foreign lace, silk and imported scented gloves as wantonly vain. This argument lost much of its credibility with the revelation that many of the most pious were actually merchants jealously guarding the upper class market for their own expensive goods.
Tied in with morality, this left an abiding sensibility about dressing appropriately for one’s class even centuries after the sumptuary laws were rescinded, with fears that dressing above one’s station was in poor taste: and as for the courtesans and ‘demi-reps’ of the 18th century who dressed with a wealth and style that exceeded many of the noblest ladies – downright slutty.
Whereas modesty and Judeo-Christian beliefs required a woman to cover her hair and thereby quell the power of her sensuality and spirituality, the
Control issues THE LOST SYMBOLS OF RESPECTABILITY
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Tea Party in convention was continued for the sake of respectability. The beautiful millinery of the fashionable classes gave poise and status, and diffidence was exhibited in the dowdy caps of spinster aunts and domestic servants. Male hats were more subject to status, and it was no coincidence that in the packed Victorian city the hats of the gentrified industrialist grew to stovepipe proportions while the rigid class system squashed flat the hats of the working class poor – only to be raised when doffed to the upper echelons.
Gloves became the ultimate male accessory at the time of the Norman Conquest, showing that the owner was noble enough to be allowed to participate in falconry. They were also useful to slap into the face of an adversary to demand a duel, or to offer as a chivalrous love token. Medieval women were cautioned against accepting them too readily in case they fell foul of the devil’s seduction; nevertheless an elegantly embroidered and perfumed glove quickly became symbolic of a lady to be admired. With the association of the Bishop’s glove symbolising his purity to do God’s work, gloves naturally became essential for any decent person who wished to disassociate themselves from the unsavoury aspects of life.
To be ‘straight-laced’ was the ultimate in respectability, displaying an upright character and determined commitment to morality. The narrative art of the 19th century showed women ‘undone’ with their corset laces trailing to indicate their appalling response to seduction, even as corsets became almost orthopaedic in their insistence on controlling and reshaping sinful feminine flesh. It was unthinkable even in the 1950s to go anywhere without the proper foundation garments to keep bottoms and bosoms in abeyance; and even as Marilyn Monroe became famous for her fabulous curves, she was denounced in the press for her lack of a girdle and an unseemly jiggle.
It was unthinkable to attend any respectable function without the benefit of stockings, a standard the Queen still holds today for her garden parties. It was only with the greatest reluctance that gentlemen were allowed to abandon their stockings during the Regency and women’s desire to remain unfettered has been greeted with even more resistance. Not only did stockings show that one’s tender regions were properly locked away under a firm foundation, but keeping stockings neat and well darned was a sign of thrift and decency that even the poorest woman could display. Sarah Jane Downing
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ATTIRE critical reporting of fashion trends 30 COVER STORY Jumping for Jupe Jackie’s hand-embroidered ties AmeliaThorpemeetsthedesignerbehindanemergingbrandthatchampionstraditionalidealsoffinecraftmanship 33 COVER STORY Crowning glories Hats off to Little Shilpa KateCavendishdiscoversthismilliner tothestarsisnotlettingsuccessgotoherhead 38 Control issues The lost symbols of respectability SarahJaneDowningrevealstherealreasonswhy gloves,hats,stockingsandcorsetswereobligatoryforwomeninthepast 48 Uniformly dressed As editor-in-chief of UK Cosmopolitan for 13 years, Deirdre McSharry knows all about the respectable rules of dress and the freedom that came with finally breaking them in f o r m
EVENTS The Selvedge Winter Fair, Saturday 10th November 10-4 Chelsea Old Town Hall, King's Road, Kensington and Chelsea, London, SW3 5EE. www.selvedge.org
WIN 80 Prizes this month... This issue exclusive prizes for Selvedge readers include three Tamasyn Gambell wool scarves worth £65 each, two hand-embroidered ties from Jupe by Jackie worth ⇔150 each and a leather ‘Portland’ bag courtesy of Tamara Fogle worth £295. For new subscribers and renewals there are Construction knitted patterns from Australian knitwear designer Nikki Gabriel. Good luck!
INFORM the latest news, reviews and exhibition listings
03 bias /contributors A letter from Selvedge founder and words of wisdom from our contributors 07 news Eileen Fisher, Paola Navone Kasthall, Arts and Science, Private 0204, An Vert Du Design, Made Brighton, The Textile Society Antique Textile Fair, Handmade in Britain 09 need to know Object in focus: The Norfolk Jacket 80 subscription offers This issue every new subscriber and renewal will receive a Nikki Gabriel Construction knitting pattern worth £14.
84 listings Exhibitions, fairs and events around the world in October and November 86 books Warp and Weft: Woven Textiles in Fashion, Art and Interiors, by Jessica Hemmings; The Ambassador Magazine: Promoting Post-War British Textiles and Fashion, by Christopher Breward and Claire Wilcox 88 view: Yohji Yamamoto, The Design Museum, by Jessica Hemmings, Weaving The Century: Dovecot 1912-2012: 100 Years of Contemporary
Tapestry, by Jennifer Harper, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: Impossible Conversations, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, by Marie O’Mahony, Fashioning the Object: Bless, Boudicca, and Sandra Backlund, The Art Institute of Chicago, by Jessica Hemmings 93 resources Websites, reading lists and sources for those who want to find out more about the Etiquette Issue 95 coming next The Evergreen Issue: Ideas, ideals and textiles that endure
SELVEDGE ('selnid3 ) n. 1. finished differently 2. the non-fraying edge of a length of woven fabric. [: from SELF + EDGE]
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