Textile Designs: Two Hundred Years of European and American Patterns for Printed Fabrics Organized by Motif, Style, Color, Layout, and Period : 1,82 [Hardcover]

Take one measure of design theory, add a cup of printing techniques, and fold in a tablespoon of ancient symbology. Add a dash of historical context, and mix well into a huge bowl of over 1800 gorgeous fabric designs. The ingredients make a luscious dessert known as Textile De signs . Meller, the owner of the fabrics depicted here, has interpreted her dessert in five different ways according to motif: floral, geometric, conversational, ethnic, and art movements and period styles. To please the most discriminating palate, she used only the best ingredients (some rarities dating to the 18th century) from her design library and design loft. The book is a colorful confection, but it is also a thoughtful and informative analysis of the artistic choices that are subconscious interpretations of the moods, longings, and aspirations of humankind. Highly recommended for design or decorative arts collections.
- Sherry Porter, Texas Coll. of Osteopathic Medicine, Fort Worth
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"Textile Designs is a staggering achievement in organization and will undoubtedly become the bible of textile design for the foreseeable future." -- Copeley News Service, October 16, 1991

"Textile Designs will precipitate a contagious case of browser euphoria." -- Peter Hellman,Metropolitan Home Magazine, December 1991

"A physical joy both to hold and to behold." -- Colleen Babington, Art and Auction Magazine, November 1991

"For professionals and self-professed fabric freaks, this book is an unlimited supply of chocolate truffles and a day at Disneyland rolled into one." -- Harriet Swift, Oakland Tribune, October 19, 1991

"Open this volume to any page and prepare to lose yourself in a dizzying array of patterns.....In addition to the book's visual splendor, its text is refreshingly intelligent, informed and witty." -- Robert Kushner, Art in America Magazine, May 1993

"The book is organised not chronologically, but by motif, which adds greatly to the fun...The categories are deliciously specific. Celestials, confetti, coral and sea-weed, circuses, clowns and crescents are followed, a hundred or so pages later, by trees, trimmings, trompe-l'oeil and trophies. Without looking at the captions it is sometimes impossible to decide whether a print is from the 1850s or the 1950s; the book could easily turn into a rarified guessing-game." -- Sarah Howell,The World of Interiors, October 1991

"This wonderful book is a little bit like being let loose unsupervised in the archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum." -- NY Times, December 19, 1991

Textile Designs is a dazzling, informative fabric encyclopedia of archival beauty. It is a necessary tool for the fashion industry, schools, and libraries." -- Margaret Mazzaraco,WWD, October 8, 1991

"Textile Designs is a dazzling, informative fabric encyclopedia of archival beauty. It is a necessary tool for the fashion industry, schools, and libraries."

—Women's Wear Daily

"An iconography of textile motifs and a vocabulary of pattern. . . . Highly recommended." —Choice

Never before have printed textiles been celebrated in a book of this magnitude. Now in paperback, Textile Designs is the indispensable sourcebook for the colorful patterned materials that have been used in fashion and interiors for the past 200 years. Organized not chronologically or geographically but by motif—Floral, Geometric, Conversational, Ethnic, and Art Movements and Period Styles—this bible of textile design presents a stunning cross-section of the materials of everyday life: printed calicos and cottons, flowered cretonnes and chintzes, polka-dot silks and foulards. With its informative text and pattern names provided not only in English but also in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese, this is a must-have for everyone interested in color and pattern. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Never Before Has the universe of printed textiles had a book of this magnitude and lavishness devoted to it. Covering the past two hundred years, during which the industrial revolution drastically altered textile manufacture, Textile Designs: Two Hundred Years of European and American Patterns presents a dazzling cross section of the colorful patterned materials that decorate our rooms and clothe our bodies. These are the textiles of the common man, as opposed to the opulent woven silk brocades, damasks, and velvets that were, before the eighteenth century, almost the only beautifully designed fabrics available. While textile museums' collections tend to focus on these elite and costly examples or emphasize rarities, this volume deals extensively with the textiles of everyday life - the printed calicos and cottons, flowered cretonnes and chintzes, polka-dot silks and foulards. More important, textile museums and books about their collections organize the examples chronologically and geographically. Here, for the first time, is a method of categorizing that is unique and practical: fabrics are organized by motif irrespective of period. Revolutionary!

A rich and colorful resource in which glamour and usefulness are stunningly combined, this visual encyclopedia of design motifs groups textiles by pattern into five chapters under the headings FLORAL, GEOMETRIC, CONVERSATIONAL, ETHNIC, and ART MOVEMENTS AND PERIOD STYLES. These chapters follow an introduction that provides a brief discussion of printed textiles. Because of the widespread interest in the subject, this book is published in a worldwide English-language edition that includes translations of all of the pattern names as well as brief introductions in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese. Textile Designs will be indispensable to professionals in the apparel and home-furnishing fields everywhere, an inspiration to designers in the graphic and visual arts, a reference book for quiltmakers and collectors (nearly all the textiles illustrated are dated, and country of origin is identified), and a feast for the eye for lovers of the beautiful.

1,823 plates in full color