The other day, (meaning in the summer) I came across a Jean Monro fabric I totally fell for and wanted to share it with y’all. BUT what with all the autumnal tones, I thought it best to wait a couple of months.
Hooray here we are!
Actually, the waiting proved fruitful as I had a long time to work out how to style the floral, apparently-traditional fabric. Stripes? Plains? Or both?
As you may know, I love a good stripe, especially against a floral. So my first task was to hunt down an earthy stripe to use as an unexpected contrast against the oranges, greys and deep reds of the Jean Monro. Found. Thanks to Paolo Moschino for Nicholas Haslam.
Then comes burnt orange. Predictable though that my be the soft, boiled wool of George Spencer Design’s Mia: Flame Tree is the perfect foil for the thick, glazed-linen weave of the stripe, and the simple cotton of the floral.
My experiments led to throwing some purple into the mix. Why not? Actually I don’t really like purple, that’s why not. But thinking outside the box, it turns out that oranges and purples, or rather rusts and aubergines look SO good together. Why is that? Thoughts?
As I work more as a styling assistant alongside my interior design projects, the creative freedom to style and shoot images for my own blog is a bit of a luxury. So this post is really an experiment. An experiment with my camera. An experiment with light, both day and artificial. An experiment in how to style a mini-shoot, with a few bits and bobs from the cupboard. An experiment in using colours way out of my comfort zone (OK well, just the purple).
Thank you to Jean Monro for a wonderful fabric that is both traditional and contemporary. It belongs as much in an English drawing room as in a funky restaurant and I have HUGE respect and admiration for those clever people who create patterns and colour ways with such versatility.
