Re: Pierre Frey and French Toiles

The charming Patrick Frey enlightened about 100 designers yesterday - covering French fabrics from the 17th century to today is pretty ambitious. I’ve been to hundreds of fabric presentations, so I didn’t think there was a lot more to learn - wrong. I loved the idea of toiles as photography - going back through the Pierre Frey archives from the beginning of the 1700’s, you can see what was going on in the world at the time. Workers were drying fabrics in the sun and moon in1760 when the printing technique was moved to the town of Jouy, so as to be close to the French royalty. The American Revolution was celebrated with a toile design dated July 4, 1776. Marie Antoinette liked pearls and swallows, and Napoleon celebrated the Empire look with documents and Egyptian elements. And so it goes. Here is a modern toile designed for Pierre Frey by an artist from Hong Kong that wanted to celebrate his own city - and the printed history through fabrics just keeps going.