Toiles for All Seasons: French and English Printed Textiles - Hardcover

This is a superbly illustrated exploration of how the simple Toile de Jouy style became a fashion staple. Toile de Jouy is a type of decorating pattern, originating in France during the 1700s, consisting of a plain, usually white or off-white, background on which a fairly complex scene was repeated. With the advent of colourfast dyes and mass production during the industrial revolution, Toile de Jouy enjoyed a huge boost in popularity, and with increasingly complex designs being printed on to an ever wider variety of textiles, it became a prime commodity and major export in both Britain and France. Pick up an interior design or decorating magazine and you will discover that this simple pattern is still used by designers today on everything from clothes to soft furnishings and even wallpaper. "Toiles for All Seasons" is a lavishly illustrated volume that explores the fascinating story of how a simple repeating pattern became a style icon.

Starr Siegle is Adjunct Curator of Prints at the Allentown Art Museum, Pennsylvania, and a former Research Scholar for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.