Runway Trend Alert - Toile de Jouy Prints
Image credit: Moschino 2020.
Trending Toile
Is Toile de Jouy still in style? The answer is yes. This print has been popping up on the runways over the last few seasons. Below are three designers who incorporated a Toile de Jouy print into their recent collections, putting their own spin on the classic design.
PHILIPP PLEIN
First up is Philipp Plein, whose toile de Jouy print features hand-in-hand skeletons, a pin-up, and two goats. The print also acted as the lookbook backdrop.
In an interview with Vogue, Plein said his mother had been crazy for Laura Ashley and sent him to boarding school with chintzy linen by the English designer. He’d recalled this slightly unhappy memory (he hated making his bed) recently while considering Toile de Jouy wallpaper for a refurbishment of his house in France. Plein-ified here it worked well, especially in Delft-ish blue, across a broad range of categories.
View the full collection here.
LIBERTINE
The connections between new and old, past and present, are the main themes of every Libertine collection. Updating a toile de Jouy print feels like a perfect fit as the brand celebrates its 20 year anniversary.
For spring 2021 Johnson Hartig created a Libertine toile print from 18th-century textile fragments, adding surprise elements like a Libertine stamp and skeletons that haunt pastoral landscapes and crumbling edifices.
In an interview with Vogue, the designer discussed his inspiration for the collection. The pieces spoke to what Hartig describes as “the tension between preppy and street punk,” which is at the core of the brand.
View the full collection here.
Moschino
The fall 2020 collection at Moschino was inspired by the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette. Toile de Jouy was a favorite of Marie Antoinette’s, making it an ideal choice for the collection.
This archetypally 18th-century pattern was used across the collection with the original faces of its cavorting courtiers transformed into wide-eyed anime characters that made you think of the excess of Harajuku dress.
View the full collection here.
Toile Overall
This iconic print is the perfect way for designers to tell a story about their collections. From a distance, it reads as traditional, but on closer inspection, hidden meanings come to life. While these prints may look classical, they subvert expectations in a way that is uniquely modern.