Floral ditsy ptint

Floral ditsy print

Tracking A Trend – Floral Ditsy Print

Introduction.

Ditsy Print by definition is “quite small in scale, and the design motifs are usually scattered or random rather than being ordered in a definable pattern like rows or stripes”. It is most commonly featured in Spring/Summer collections alongside bright colours and soft, flowing fabrics that are associated to the Bohemian trend. It is a feature of which is now key to the two seasons and reoccurs annually just with a different colour scheme and shape to the pattern. With predictions being made already for Spring/Summer ’15 ditsy print is set to be yet another high trend of the season for another year running showing it’s popularity throughout the world.

Trend throughout the last decade.

Although the floral trend is a common feature year after year, and is set to be again for this upcoming summer, the two most popular seasons for the ditsy print, over the past decade, have to be Spring/Summer 2014 and spring/Summer 2012. These two seasons are key in the rising of the popular floral ditsy print and this is all down to the designer Mary Katrantzou. Katrantzou was the talk and praise of London Fashion Week and won the emerging talent award at the British Fashion Awards.

The signature prints and structural silhouettes that Mary has designed exclusively for us are set to make this collaboration as precious as the prized possesions that inspired it, from vivid crystal flower brooches to Qing Long Dynasty floral motif China. Mary’s prints are intricate and dazzle in paradisical shades…

This quote taken from the Topshop website, along with figure 1 shows the intricacy of the ditsy design and how the colours she has chosen to show these designs portray and compliment that. In turn, this also shows the importance and history of these influences and how the print has evolved and flourished creating what we know, love and wear in today’s society.

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Dolce and Gabbana’s Spring/Summer Campaign of 2011 was also one to be remembered for the promotion and rise in popularity of ditsy print. Their campaign combined the classic colours of spring such as grass green’s and flirty pink and reds with bursts of yellows and purples. The designers took inspiration from “the 70’s era with wide-leg trousers, floaty sleeves and a slight hippie, care-free style leading the way”.

Figure 2 is from the Dolce and Gabbana Spring/Summer 2011 campaign and is showing how this trend is part of a conglomeration of prints. This means that the floral ditsy trend is just a small portion of something much bigger as there are so many variations, not only of the ditsy print but of the floral print in general.

Figure 2

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History of the trend.

Although the trend was not at its peak during the 1980’s, it was at it’s height for menswear as designers such as Scott Crolla were using the newly popular print in their collections. New emerging pop stars of that era such as Boy George, Adam Ant and David Bowie were all supporting the new trend as part of the London club scene.

Scott Crolla used ornate floral and multipatterned prints in his foppish menswear…

Galliano was also a key designer in this emerging trend taking influences from the Middle East such as fabrics and layering styles and adding to the New Romantic trend.

The following year Galliano started his own label with a collection entitled ‘Afghanistan Repudiates Western Ideal’, which combined Western tailoring with Eastern fabrics and styling.

Not only was this the start of the use of floral in menswear but also the rise of the gyspy style with patterns and softer more flowing material coming through from countries such as Romania.

The end of the 60’s and early years of the 70’s saw the start of the free spirited, loving hippies where the idea of men wearing floral originated and was completely accepted. Before this time it would have been very rare if not non existent to see men wearing floral print let alone smaller, more intricate and feminine ditsy print. Not only were men wearing more feminine prints but colours too, it was as though the line between the distinct clothing pieces for each sex was beginning to be blurred. This was being shown through men wearing more flowing, feminine clothing such as blouses and businesswomen wearing more fitted, tailored trousers. During this era, the fashion industry saw many changes such as “the replacement of the mini’s rigid, triangular silhouette by the long, svelte lines of the midi and maxi”. Paris was also beginning to loose it’s status as the Fashion capital of the World as Milan and New York were discovering their strengths in the booming industry, causing a near end to the Haute Couture trend. However Yves St. Laurent sought out this opportunity and decided to select “elements from extravagant costume to rework into eye-catching yet practical day wear”.

At a time when the craft of patchwork was being revived in Europe and the U.S, Saint Laurent took the technique upmarket, creating not only sophisticated patchwork evening wear but also a wedding dress…At another level he used humble, undyed calico and printed cottons for layered smocks and gypsy styles.

By doing this YSL added patchwork and layering to the hippie trend and even tried to promote the style to a much more upmarket audience. In turn this meant that even the hippie trend culture was much wider than people realised and that ditsy print was no longer subjected to being worn by certain classes.

Still recovering from the Great Depression late into the 1930’s and with the pre World War Two period looming closer, textiles and other everyday items still needed to be acquired cheaply. Many materials such as silks and types of rayon were still harder to obtain particularly during the war as silk was used for parachutes and powder bags. Floral prints, particularly ditsy print were popular during these two decades due to the fact that it was so cheap to manufacture as it was being produced on cotton, nylon and jersey. The pattern itself was seen as both a day and evening print due to its delicate versatility and therefore was considered the perfect attire for rations to be spent on. Ditsy print was also seen as beach wear.

Beaches blouses were often cut low at the back and sarong-style trunks or shorts were worn with bra tops in floral-printed rayon jersey.

Due to the cheap rate in which the material was being manufactured, items of clothing would easily tear and rip; therefore the concept of ‘mend and make do’ was introduced. This influenced a new era of fashion of which was seen throughout the hippie era and the 90’s where different prints, materials and colours were combined to create a distinct and bespoke garment. Many of these products featured floral designs and in the 1940’s ditsy print was particularly popular. Figure 3 is showing the way a simple ditsy print dress could be transferred from a summer day dress to evening wear just by adding a jacket.

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During the 1930’s many designers sought influences from international cultures and ethnicities creating a new dimension of trends of which the world had never really experienced before.

From 1934, the Chinese-Deco style was especially evident in the work of Valentia, Mainbocher and Molyneux, who were inspired by the brilliant colours of Chinese porcelain and Japanese blossom prints.

Japanese cherry blossom was a big inspiration for ditsy print during this era as it was such an easy design to replicate and manipulate to record and print into different patterns. The idea of ditsy print is mostly from Japanese influence as they have a language of flowers and wear each flower with the meaning of their mood that day. Although this isn’t the case in England or America, they took this idea a replicated it onto Kimono’s, sashes and collars.

The Eighteenth century saw changes in both patterns and materials used to create garments. This change was due to the colonisation of Europe with the rest of the world particularly as Britain occupied India and therefore made it easier to obtain cheap Indian chintz.

Babur, the first Mughal emperor of India (reigned 1526-30), was a great lover of nature…His love of flowers was shared by later generations of Mughal emperors, particularily Jahangir (reigned 1605 – 1627) who asked his artist Mansur to paint over 200 Spring flowers….became more stylised under Shah Jahan and evolved into a widely used decorative motif.

Figure 4 is showing the “painted and dyed cotton made in western India for the British Market.

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Figure 4

The different patterns and embroideries used were used to show a divide in classes. Crown and court wore much more expensive and “elaborate woven patterns or intricate embroideries, fine lace and above all costly jewels” to show their wealth whereas the common people “wore two styles; their best dress, Sunday dress…their everyday dress showed certain divergences from it, the red cloak, the straw hat and the pattern”. The every day dress of the common people however was completely dependent on the day job they had. The style listed above was the every day wear for a poor farmer however richer farmers wore something different.

Key influences

During the year of 1843, Arthur Lasenby Liberty was born. He was the founder of one of the biggest department stores in London, Liberty’s. In the eighteen-eighties, an important shift in the business occurred as “an increasing intake of work by British designers was bought or commissioned specially for the company”.

By the mid eighteen-nineties Liberty had become synonymous with the very best of new British design.

By the 1960’s the business was booming and now Liberty’s was selling much more than just fabrics. It was now selling furniture, ceramics, textiles, costume, glass and much more, all of which changed depending on the era and whether the materials were available. “Liberty and Co. (Wholesale) Ltd was given it’s own separate organization to design and produce printed fabrics”. Ditsy print by this stage was much more commonly worn and it was due to the designer Bernard Nevill who, during the 60’s created the ‘Tana Lawn’ pattern of which was a series of different ditsy print florals. “This perennial favourtie, comprising dense ‘little floral’ patterns originated in the nineteen-thirties and was updated in the nineteen-sixties”. The rise and huge popularity of the company helped the ditsy print find its way as one of the most well-known and key prints in fashion today.

Laura Ashley is another key influence for the evolution of the floral ditsy print. Her printed furnishings and garments were at their most popular during the 1960’s. Laura Ashley’s popularity along with the booming business of Liberty’s helped boost the popularity of the floral ditsy print as these were all key trends of that era. Anyone who was anyone was wearing either a Liberty print or owned a piece from the Laura Ashley collection.

Theory of the trend.

The theory that can be applied to the whole of the text is the historical perspective.