Print and Patchwork

Celebrating the Roaring Twenties in a Special Series

Backdrop: Electric Prisms, Sonia Delaunay, 1913; tank top: CueSonia Delaunay at workSonia Delaunay, born in modern-day Ukraine (1185–1979), was a Jewish-French artist of the Art Deco period. She was famous for her colourful geometric textile designs, although her work extended to painting and stage set design too.

It was in 1911 that Delaunay’s distinctive style was born – along with the arrival of her son Charles. She spontaneously created a quilt for his crib, and said of it:

“About 1911 I had the idea of making for my son, who had just been born, a blanket composed of bits of fabric like those I had seen in the houses of Russian peasants. When it was finished, the arrangement of the pieces of material seemed to me to evoke cubist conceptions and we then tried to apply the same process to other objects and paintings." [Wikipedia]

Geometric swimsuit designsShe and her husband Robert were inspired by the wild colours used by the Fauvists, and by Cubism too. Experimenting with colour and design in a style they called simultanéisme, the Delaunays explored the way in which colours and shapes interacted and affected one another, employing a theory similar to Pointilism, in which the eye mixes closely-placed dots of primary colours.

Dress, 1913Delaunay met Sergei Diaghilev in 1917 and went on to design costumes for his production of Cleopatra and Aida. On their return to Paris from Madrid, she began to make clothes privately, and in 1923 her textile business was founded. Commissioned by a manufacturer from Lyon, Delaunay created 50 fabric designs in her distinctive style, using geometrical shapes and vivid colours. Soon after she began to work for herself and simultané became her registered trademark.

Although my tank top is not boldly coloured, it put me in mind of Sonia Delaunay’s geometric designs from the first – the pattern was the main reason I purchased it. Along with one of Mariano Fortuny’s pieces, a real Delaunay garment (or even replicas of either) would be a dream to own. 

Scroll past the pictures below and read a profile on the artist, from Elle magazine (issue number unknown) – click image for a larger version.

PochoirTwo models in summer beachwear, 1927Winter fashionElectric Prisms, Sonia Delaunay, 1914Click on image for larger version