PLAID

Hello dear reader! This article is part of “the Interpretation of Prints,” a series where I analyze visual qualities of fashion prints along with their historical evolution. Check out the previous article on floral.

Let’s talk about plaid, and yes, it existed before Clueless. Being one of the most enduring prints in history, the invention of plaid was outside the realm of fashion. It’s incredibly versatility, and it comes with a package deal of cultural and historical associations.

Visual History

The earliest form of tartan is arguably invented in pre-Roman times and existed throughout Europe and central Asia. There are archeological evidences from the Taklamakan dessert of China to the Celtic islands. In the sixteenth century, plaid was called tartan, the unique cloth patterns which distinguish one Scottish clan or geographical region from another. It was made with wool, and the design consists of crisscrossed, horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colors. Being a symbol of political rebellion, tartan was outlawed by the British government for a period of time in the 18th century.

Despite its political origin, plaid has found its way to every facet of life. In the 90s, grunge bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam wore plaid shirts reminiscent of the American blue collar worker — a modern echo of its rebellious root.

Kurt Cobain in plaid shirt.

Nowadays, plaid is a wardrobe staple of the grunge aesthetic. In the spirit of proper scientific research, a cursory search through Pinterest with “grunge outfits” has yielded very reassuring results. Keywords like “indie” and “alternative” can also be applied interchangeably.

I don’t even need to explain the little plaid skirts — you can buy them from literally anywhere. There is something undeniably “cute” about the checkered pattern with a hint of school girl chic. Plaid pants, which I personally love (only if in very agreeable color combinations), has also become a fashion stable for many people. Last but not least, many of us have certainly wore flannels in middle school… don’t deny it because I still have not given my two sentimental flannel shirts to Goodwill. The truth is, American brands just love coming out with flannel shirts every back-to-school season.

High Fashion

High fashion loves plaid as well. Vivienne Westwood has close ties with the 1970s punk scene. Marc Jacobs came out with a controversial 1993 collection for Perry Ellis of plaid shirts in silk. Alexander McQueen was also heavily inspired by plaid (he still calls it tartan) and created the iconic black, red, and yellow McQueen sett.

Vivienne Westwood and model at SS 2010 collection runway.

Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis, SS93

“Alexander McQueen plaid”

Burberry is another brand with an iconic plaid, invented in the 1920s and sewn within the lining of their popular trench coats. Once a subdued detail, the pattern has been overly popularized in recent years and is seen on the runway in bold display.

Burberry x Vivienne Westwood

Versace has also experimented with plaid. The FW 2018 runway is famously known for flamboyant colors and collaging different plaids.

Versace’s FW 2018 collection

How to Wear Plaid

Plaid is usually bold and colorful, which is something I absolutely adore, but it can easily be overwhelming and difficult to style. If you are unfamiliar with plaid and want to incorporate it into your wardrobe, I would recommend patterns that are relatively muted. For example, a monochromatic outfit of checkered pants and sweater is simple and suitable for many occasions. It’s not flamboyant but certainly not basic. Similarly, plaid dresses and skirts can paired with t-shirts and almost any footwear.

Accessorizing with plaid is another great option to spice up your outfit.

Acne Studio scarf

If you are feeling more adventurous, try mixing patterns or experimenting with bolder color combinations — or both!

---

cover image via

FLORAL

Ah, the underrated beauty of prints and patterns.

Sometimes we focus so much on the fabric, the silhouette, or what colors are trending in a given season, and we don’t give enough credit to the most visually impactful aspect of fashion -- oftentimes, a signature print or pattern is what sets a brand apart from others.

Welcome to the first installment of the series where I analyze popular prints in fashion, which further symbolize the overarching aesthetic standard of what we as consumers find to be visually pleasing, attractive, or whatever you feel when you decide to purchase a floral dress or a Breton stripe shirt. Fashion choices are often made instinctively and never sufficiently analyzed. I hope this article gives you some insights into how floral prints have become an integral part of fashion, and the visual history behind different artistic styles.

Mixing prints and patterns was popular during London Fashion Week

Introducing… The Floral Print

The thing is, almost every fashion brand has done floral prints. They are always in style because the possibilities are truly endless. We have them for wallpaper, furniture, stationery, and many more. From Forever 21 to Reformation to Versace, summer in the fashion industry is an everblooming garden, and it doesn’t stop there —  spring, fall, and winter fashion all have their own version of floral prints. We wear tropical prints while going on tropical vacations, and we wear holiday sweaters with motifs of snowflake or pine tree. There are vintage floral prints, funky floral prints, psychedelic floral prints, dainty floral prints… You get the idea. When roses and cherry blossoms go out of style, strawberries and daisies (yes, motifs of fruits and leaves are considered floral prints) come back in style. The world of floral print is a miniature version of the fashion industry.

Some of Alexander McQueen’s most iconic floral dresses throughout the years

---

A Brief History

Artists have been capturing the ephemeral beauty of flowers, plants, and fruits since time immemorial. Ancient Egyptians assigned sacred properties to lotus blossoms, but they also loved depicting roses, acacia, poppies, violets, jasmine, lilies, and narcissus. [1]

Flowers and plants were commonly arranged in vessels like spouted vases and baskets

Common motifs found in papyrus scrolls

Just a few centuries later, ancient Greek literature detailed people’s love for making garlands and wreaths for different occasions, in addition to decorating vases and temples with floral art. Cornucopia (the Horn of Plenty), a religious offering that symbolizes abundance, is also passed down from ancient Greece. [2]

Sculpture holding cornucopia

Patterns found in Greek pottery

Islamic art took inspiration from Greco-Roman influences and evolved them into branching plant forms — the arabesque.

Around the same time, Chinese artisans embroidered flowers, vines, and animals with silk threads. Floral embroidery traveled through the Silk Road into the Indian subcontinent and the Byzantine Empire, which then traveled to Europe. [3]

Chinese embroidery from 386—581 AD

The ancestor of modern floral print is chintz — glazed cotton from Calicut, India around the early seventeenth century. Dutch and Portuguese traders brought the beautiful fabric to Europe, but it was banned for nearly a century because local producers were wildly against foreign competition. Nevertheless, the fabric found its way to Versailles and Mount Vernon before it was finally produced in the west, around the early 1800s. [4]

The Chintz Room was one of the six primary bedchambers at Mount Vernon in 1799

---

Dainty Flowers & Impressionism

The recent popularity of tiny daisies and the infamous “strawberry dress” prove that dainty floral patterns are totally in trend. This kind of print has intricate, miniature flowers that look like dots of colors from far away, which makes it more visually interesting.

via Realisation

via DOEN

Personally, I find this particular effect very similar to the brushstrokes of Impressionist painters, such as Monet and Pissarro.

Claude Monet, Garden at Giverny, 1895

On the left is the close-up of an extremely small floral print, and on the right is a zoomed-in area of Monet’s Garden at Giverny.

The technique of applying tiny dots of color was further developed by painters of Neo-Impressionism, also known as Pointillism. Through the juxtaposition of bright colors, the painters created different shades without mixing, therefore keeping the saturation.

Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884-1886

What makes the dainty floral print so popular? Perhaps we are attracted to its neutral subtlety — not as flamboyant as tropical or psychedelic floral print, and not as conspicuous as vintage floral print. It can almost resemble any abstract pattern, but it still carries the natural allure of “decorating one’s body with flowers.”

The abstraction of floral element makes this pattern more “basic” and versatile, attracting customers with different fashion styles (via Reformation)

---

Vintage & “Oriental”

The term “vintage floral print” often comes up in fashion blogs, but it is extremely vague and wildly inaccurate. Nevertheless, fashion bloggers use this term for anything that looks like Victorian wallpaper or botanical illustrations from the nineteenth century.

Zimmerman is known for “vintage-inspired “ prints

Although botanical illustration does appear on clothing, most of the “vintage print” we see are westernized adaptations of traditional Indian floral motif, dating all the way back to the seventeenth century. [4]

Can you tell which of the four designs are westernized?

The answer is — the first three. Now take a look at early European chintz to see how similar the designs are.

It is also around the same period that floral patterns on Japanese kimono and traditional Chinese clothing found themselves incorporated into European clothing. So much was the Victorian obsession with Japanese kimono, that a London magazine reported in 1898 on a “smart” dinner party given by a society hostess in New York, where all of the women in attendance wore Japanese kimonos. Here is an except of the accompanied poem:

Good-bye to the time when the maid of our clime

Went over to France for the fashion,

And copied each craze (as the men did the plays—

Though wat‘ring Parisian passion).

But now she is fanned in Chrysanthemum Land,

By taking its fashions on loan, O!

And changing her taste for the waist that is laced,

My lady adopts the kimono. [5]

Alfred Stevens, The Japanese Parisian, 1872

Obviously, these styles have not faded out of fashion. Japanese and Chinese floral prints are very commonly found in fast fashion, so are kimono and qipao as “classic” silhouettes. While I don’t intend to discuss the topic of cultural appropriation (probably saving it for a future article), here are some more images to consider — would you be comfortable wearing these?

via Fleur du Mal

---

Wear with the Seasons

Let’s talk about that Hawaiian shirt in your dad’s closet, or the last tropical floral dress you purchased for summer vacation. These are seasonal prints that most people won’t wear in fall or winter. Interestingly, the fashion industry has carved out specific colors and motifs for each season: spring is soft and gentle with pastel shades; summer is vibrant and probably tropical; fall is warm and invokes the season of harvest; winter is likely to be minimalistic and cool-toned.

For example, this Farm Rio dress has colorful bananas and pineapples in primary colors to invoke a steamy, tropical feeling.

via Farm Rio

On the other hand, this Tory Burch puffer in a rather season-neutral print contains a lot of cobalt blue and turquoise with a dash of red. The same puffer in warm tones would completely change our perception, making it more appropriate for fall.

via Tory Burch

---

References & Further Readings

[1] https://www.fashionologiahistoriana.com/costume-history-legends-essays-in-english/the-brief-history-of-floral-pattern

[2] https://www.britannica.com/art/floral-decoration/Historical-and-stylistic-developments

[3] https://flowerpowerdaily.com/putting-flowers-on-clothing-a-short-history-of-embroidery-lace-and-chintz/

[4] https://www.vogue.com/article/chintz-prints-to-know

[5] https://mimimatthews.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/japonisme-the-japanese-influence-on-victorian-fashion

Main Image via

The Beauty of Fabrics

I didn’t really start examining the different types of fabric my closet encompassed until quarantine. For six months I just stared at my clothes in fascination instead of wearing them, so it really started to stimulate my desire to explore fabrics and how designers choose certain types in order to tell a story. Throughout this ~exploration~, I have discovered it takes a unique person to be able to mix patterns; I have not only envy but admiration for their talent.

Fabric choices are now even more prevalent in my life now than it was in quarantine. A few weeks ago, I started designing my apartment with my roommates, so fabric selection has been the key in making progress towards an apartment that actually pleases all of us (mainly me because I am picky). A fabric’s texture paired with the right color can change a space drastically, but it is also so easy to make the wrong choice in the selection process.

With my apartment being oh so cold (due to the cool tones in the flooring and fixture choices and high ceilings), I needed to bring in some warmth to the common area. The perfect fabric for that is velvet (this was just my excuse to get a velvet couch). Collectively, we settled on a bright, navy, velvet couch. The color brings a depth and richness to room that helps bring some life back to the cold empty space.

Just like with the furniture, the choice of fabric elevates a piece of clothing. It can be used from toning down to giving an edge. Now here are some prime examples of my favorite fabrics, modeled and photographed by my roommates and myself, and how you should use them:

Faux Fur

I think faux fur is one of the most polarizing fabric choices. It can add texture and camp, and, be warned, it can very easily go from edgy and glamorous to tacky. This variation is very much based upon the person who wears it. To a certain extent, the fabric will naturally make your outfit look gaudy, so one is forced to find balance or tone down their other garments. However, even if I find it tacky, I love a faux fur coat. I just don’t love it on a soroity girl on formal night.

Faux Leather

There is nothing more badass than leather (or I as i prefer faux leather). Imagine walking into a room, and all the heads turn towards you. That is what wearing leather feels like. It adds some coldness to the tone of the fit, while also allowing one to seem more collected (it is literally magic). It is problematic though. Leather is terrible (but that changes if its recycled, up-cycled, etc), but faux leather then also has negative effects on the environment. While I’ll never be able to pull them off as much as I want to, my favorite way to see this fabric is in the form of pants (preferably a looser fit).

Cord

The warmth. The texture. The dimension. It is one of my favorite fabric choices for the winter. I don’t think there is a way to go wrong with cord either. It works in so many forms from jackets to pants, especially two cord pieces together. Particularly, my favorite form would be pants (I love a good pant). However, the most intriguing thing about cord is the effect one can make by choosing a cool toned color to contrast the warmth and stiffness of fabric, creating beautifully shocking outfit.

Tulle

The fabric, itself, is airy and voluminous. It screams fairytale; it screams ‘I am a princess’. Honestly, what more can you ask for from a fabric? Imagine walking around town in tulle pants, so fun. It is literally always a party when wearing tulle, but for everyday usage, for the toned down individual, try incorporating tulle in subtle accents (i.e. socks). It also has the potential to make one look puffy (but like a fairytale puffy), so one should tread with caution.

Denim

Denim always gives me cowboy vibes no matter the outfit (most of the time). There’s nothing you can do really wrong with denim if you keep it casual, but that is also the issue. It is so easy to wear denim boringly, but it so easily can be interesting if styled right. My favorite denim piece will always be a black denim jacket (a boring staple piece that is easily elevated), but you could always pair a boring piece with patchwork jeans (I have been so into them recently, but like a maximalist version of the one people keep buying from UO) When it comes to denim more is better; it is already such a casual fabric. Get patterned jeans. Get sequin jeans. Get fun pockets on your jackets. Get a denim bag. Diversify your denim usage !

Satin

Satin literally glows in the light. It calls the gaze in every room you walk in. I will always be obsessed with a satin suit (I constantly keep buying them). However, I think for any satin pieces it is the color that makes it. Boring colors just wash out the beauty of the fabric; there needs to be color! Let the bold color and the beauty of the fabric make the air around you come alive.

---

Special Thanks to Nicole Helou and Vivian Li for helping me make my vision come to life with the help of their creative eye.