‘Margo’ is our most popular print so I thought it would be a good one to kick off this series of ‘Design Stories’. My aim is that these stories take you through the thoughts and inspiration behind each design, how I translated my ideas onto paper and into a pattern, how we produced the final product and then how that product has then been used by others to tell another story. So without further ado… ‘Margo’.
During a wonderful holiday to the Greek island of Corfu I read author and zoologist Gerald Durrell’s delightfully funny, autobiographical book, My Family and Other Animals, describing his unconventional childhood there. Lying on my front on a rocky beach in the September sunshine, his evocative prose completely focused my Corfiot experience and I looked for what he vividly described: the colours, the plants and animals, sounds and smells, the temperature and textures and found pockets of the landscape and life he remembered, still there if occasionally marred by a large boat of burnt tourists or an abandoned motorbike.
Corfu, Clementines and all my Gerald Durrell books
‘Margo’ is one of a small collection of prints I designed following this trip, inspired by both my short time on Corfu and Durrell’s books and named the ‘Garden of the Gods’ after Durrell’s title, both for the island and his third book in the trilogy.
The designs themselves draw on Corfu’s flora and fauna as described by Durrell and aim to replicate the colours, atmosphere and characters (both human and otherwise) so richly expressed in his writing. The colours we’ve used in the final fabric prints reflect the Mediterranean motifs: deep, clear blues, verdant greens and bright turquoise, dusty chalk and terracotta, with a smattering of citrus and geranium (pigment name picking is pretentious but pungent: you get the idea).
My initial watercolour sketch for the design, pencil drawing and adding detail to the print layers.
An orchard of fruit and flowers, ‘Margo’ is a tribute to Margaret, the only Durrell daughter and Gerry’s teenaged sister. Life, while idyllic, seems reasonably frustrating for Margo. She is isolated from girls her own age at a time when you might look for reassurance from your contemporaries. She is primarily preoccupied (according to Gerald) with “hectic affairs of the heart”. Lurching through numerous, sentimental dilemmas, she has only a preoccupied mother and three brothers for counsel each of whom are equally absorbed in their own pursuits, pausing but briefly to ridicule (however humorously) her weight, complexion or current paramour. I designed this fabric for her. I too, blundered through my adolescence as one of only two girls (my sister being the other) at an all boys’ boarding school where my father taught. While I lacked some of Margo’s dramatic conduct and romantic impulse (possibly my parents would disagree), I can utterly empathise with her situation as she teeters on the threshold of womanhood in a faintly unusual, environment.
Photograph by Ewald Hoinkis, 1940s summer prints and Liberty & Co dress fabric 1938
This design was my first floral print. Launching off the deep end, it unashamedly celebrates flourishing femininity illustrating many of Corfu’s blooms: anemones, roses, magnolia, orange blossom and, of course, that Mediterranean classic, the geranium. There’s even a somewhat obvious moth emerging from its cocoon (as Durrell would say “just in case we missed the point”). The pattern references the bold fashion prints of the 40s that Margo may or may not have worn but I love them so it was a great excuse to research that element and get the feeling absorbed into the design.
Screen printing ‘Margo’. Two colours on the left and then four on the right
We screen print most of our designs. The process retains a wonderful depth of colour and texture and means that every run is unique (sometimes this is a blessing, sometimes I wouldn’t describe it as such). We print Margo in three colour ways, Lemon, Pink and Mandarin, on an oyster linen. The scale of the huge horizontal repeat means we will struggle to get it onto a conventional wallpaper but we will try at some point.
‘Margo’ used in interiors from Sarah Vanrenen left and Henri Fitzwilliam-Lay right
It is the absolute cherry on the cake in my job to see my fabrics and wallpapers used in other designer’s interiors and in the case of this fabric it is used very much in the spirit in which it was designed (but perhaps that always happens) in bold, playful, feminine rooms with serious character. Rather like Margo herself.