"Cotton Is Fashion" - Mid-Century Modern Prints, 1958

 I'm going to interrupt my "Decades of Dresses" posts for a moment to blog about "mid-century modern" fabrics.  (And yes, many, many summer dresses were made of these fabrics in the 1950s and 1960s.)    Mid-century modern covers all the forward looking design styles of the postwar period: architecture, furniture, interior design and—of course—graphic and textile design.

However, on a topic like this a picture is worth a thousand words.  I was searching for something to illustrate this topic when I stumbled on an advertorial for cotton in the June-July 1958 issue of Vogue Pattern Book.   

To start off, in glorious black and white.  Stripes and polka-dots are fairly conventional.  The abstract print in the upper left corner is different though, as is the formalised leaf print draped over the model's right arm.

... And in closeup: big, stylised flowers hanging from the models left arm.  Black on white and white on black—it is definitely not what would have been meant by a floral print before the war.

Here we have a selection of cotton fabrics in shades of red and yellow.  The material wrapped around the model is a modernist print, as is the fabric in the centre foreground.

... And taking a closer look at that design in the foreground, we can see it is Chinese themed.  I've no idea whether the Chinese characters in the pattern are real, or if so, what they mean.  For all I know they might have been copied off the signs on Chinese restaurants!

Lastly, some more cottons mostly in combinations of red and pink.   The stripes, plain pink and roses at the centre of the page are fairly traditional, but on the right there are some interestingly striped (at top) and dotted (at bottom) fabrics.  The model herself is wearing a thoroughly modern abstract print.

... And focusing on that print, it almost looks as it belongs on the wall of a gallery as an example of abstract impressionism.  Perhaps not entirely coincidentally the Arts Council of Great Britain held an exhibition of Abstract Impressionist paintings in 1958!