BEHIND THE DESIGNS: Toile De Joy
A look behind the scenes of our 30 Years of Print collection
Welcome to our art studio. Step behind the scenes of our Toile De Joy print, the opening chapter of the hand-painted narrative of The Joy Makers and our 30 Years of Print.
French for ‘canvas’, Toile de Jouy patterns originate from the 18th Century and depict detailed, romantic and illustrative scenes traditionally painted on cotton and used on wallpaper and home fabrics.
“What they did with this design technique”, Holly shares of her research into the print techniques made famous by the resettled French in Spitalfields, London, “was to mark moments in history by painting these amazing bucolic scenes. For our 30-year anniversary, I thought this style of print would be perfect to show our history and heritage.”
Finding a wealth of inspiration in these vintage textiles, our design team set to work crafting our very own truly special, limited-edition ‘Toile de Joy’, depicting intricate scenes full of iconic Cath Kidston motifs and hand-painted vignettes of our most treasured moments. Celebrating three decades of bringing joy to our beloved customers.
“The print took me around 20 hours to paint, because it’s so detailed and tiny. You can see when you look closely our archive bird print, the rolls of fabric and even Cath’s original ironing board cover – the very one that founded the brand.”
See Stanley and Billie, Cath’s cherished dogs, donning a button spot coat and posing for a portrait underneath a Provence Rose tarp, Spring Birds taking flight over London and forest bunnies stopping to graze on our famous strawberries. “You can see all the little hints of our heritage”.
Coloured in both refreshing cool blue hues and sunny spring yellows, Toile de Joy has been purposefully placed on product across our collection in a playful array of scales and print partnerships. Find it framed with bold navy stripes and graphic slogan webbing on bags, married with the bold brushstrokes of our reimaged Archive Rose on dresses and worked as a commemorative scarf print for accessories.
“This is a new dress shape this season”, Holly shares the most loved piece from the team “– a really beautiful soft wasted dress with a button sailor collar all trimmed in grosgrain ribbon, which really enhances the fact we’ve mixed three complimentary and contrasting prints. We work really hard to marry the prints just perfectly, always. Whether it’s a dress, or a tea towel – every print is beautiful placed to the specific product”.
Explore the full narrative of this lovingly created print, and discover how it highlights and champions the reimagined archives it shares this collection with.
