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Toile de Jouy

Toile duck egg-4.jpg

We added a new colourway to our range of Toile de Jouy fabrics this week, which inspired me to do a little bit of research into the history of this famous cloth.

Toile de Jouy is typically a single colour print on a white or off-white cotton fabric, depicting 17th century figures in the countryside.

The name is French, ‘toile’ (pronounced ‘twahl’) meaning ‘cloth’ and ‘de Jouy’ meaning ‘from Jouy’, (the area in France in which the fabric was first manufactured).

pink toile.jpg

The distinctive hand-drawn quality derives from the printing process used. Early printed cotton was created using wooden blocks, but in 1770 copperplates were utilised for the first time, at a factory in Jouy, near Versailles. The copperplates allowed finer lines to be drawn and encouraged the use of tonal shading. The copperplates also enable users to create much larger pattern repeats. This inspired designers to move away from floral or geometric designs and they began creating scenes depicting figures.

Here is a photo of one of the earliest Toiles created using the new copperplates to celebrate the first balloon flight:

toilesballoon.jpg

Toile is hugely popular now, being used in home furnishings, wallpaper, crockery and also in clothing. Toile de Jouy adds a sense of elegance and refinement to any interior scheme. The large scale of the pattern lends itself well to longer drops whilst it also can work well on cottage windows due to the fine detailing. Toile co-ordinates beautifully with a gingham check or a ticking stripe.

green toile.jpg

There are lots of collections of images on Pinterest, just trying searching under 'toile' and you'll be rewarded with hundreds of inspiring images! Here's a board we created:

http://www.pinterest.com/curtainscc/toile-de-jouy/

If you’re interested in reading more, this book comes highly recommended:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toile-Jouy-Printed-Textiles-Classic/dp/0500511497/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1395135111&sr=8-2&keywords=toile+de+jouy

We also enjoyed reading this post on Design Sponge:

http://www.designsponge.com/2010/03/past-present-toile-de-jouy-modern-toile.html

And here's a link to a contemporary take on this traditional fabric, Timorous Beasties are a company who depict contemporary scenes using the traditional techniques:

http://www.timorousbeasties.com/collection/toile

And best of all, a Doctor Who infused toile:

http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/2620876

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