Lucienne Day’s “Caylx” for Style Imitating Art

Hello and welcome to my fifth selection of Style Imitating Art for the year!

Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art, at the moment, is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and me.

Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday one of us selects an inspiration image and we each post the image on our blogs. The following Monday we share our art-inspired outfits. The following Wednesday, the curator shares all of the submissions on her blog.

This Week’s Presenter

Well, that would be me!

This Week’s Inspirational Image

Calyx by Lucienne Day, 1951

For this round, I have picked the groundbreaking design, Calyx, which was created by Lucienne Day for the 1951 Festival of Britain.

This pattern was designed for a room that her husband, Robin Day, had created for the festival. With her ability to combine abstract art with natural motifs, Lucienne Day created playful and intelligent textiles. Also, at the time, her eye-popping color contrasts with organic abstract shapes were a dose of good cheer that post-war Britain needed.

Calyx was the beginning of a career that would expand into different types of textiles, working with numerous companies and winning many awards. It should also be noted that she was a very successful woman designer in, at the time, a very male-dominated world which makes her quite a groundbreaker.

Over the years, Calyx has been interpreted in quite a few different colorways and I’ve decided to use two; one colorway is close to the original (using a warm brown rather than the green_ and the second with a yellow background. Even with the different backgrounds, these colorways have some similar hues used and both also have black/white patterns (along with solid black.)

Lucienne Day worked with her husband, Robin Day who also was an accomplished designer. Both lived well into their nineties and were married for fifty-six years. Both passed away in 2010.

In 2008, Wallpaper magazine interviewed the couple. It is fascinating and the link to it is HERE.

There is also a very good BBC video from 1993 with a short interview with Lucienne Day and talks about about the impact that “Calyx” made.

Lucienne Day has always been one of my favorite textile designers and I’ve written about her work in the very early days of my blog.

About Calyx itself, HERE

An article covering some of her orange-based designs, HERE.

More of her nature-based designs HERE.

Some of Lucienne Day’s geometrical designs HERE.

And finally, there are her tea towels HERE.

You can still purchase fabric and furniture designed by Day’s HERE.

Have Some Fun & Join Us

Go take a look in your closet and see what you have. Put something together and send it to me at meadowtreestyle@gmail.com by a week from tomorrow, August 23rd. I love getting those emails!

I think that’s it for now,