Liberty Florals - Petals of Style

If a brand encapsulates the floral flurries of Spring, Liberty of London is it. Founded in 1875 and set in mock-Tudor architectural surroundings, the heritage London department store epitomises style all to itself.
  
Liberty fabrics are closely associated with what defines the quintessential Liberty print: small-scale floral motifs, paisley, and hand-drawn flowers, which confer it renown the world over. The designs combine style, freshness, feminity and timelessness in a loving embrace set to beautify homes, clothing and accessories. Throughout its history, the brand has involved artists and designers, such as William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, YSL and Vivienne Westwood, on design projects.

The Liberty florals are a success story steeped in history and proud of its legacy, while still remaining resolutely contemporary and appealing to a younger harder-to-please generation of shoppers and homemakers.

"Liberty is the chosen resort of the artistic shopper." (Oscar Wilde)

Sources: (1-4 & 6-7) Photography from Liberty. (1) Mirabelle C Tana Lawn, and (2) Mirabelle A Tana Lawn are both part of the Liberty Art Fabrics collection. This cotton fabric is an archive design from 1962 and is described as 'a typical Liberty floral with a fresh 1960s look to it.' Introduced on Classic Tana for Autumn-Winter 2006. (3) Helena's Meadow A Rossmore Cord Cotton is part of the Liberty Art Fabrics. The design is a small scale version of the 1930s design 'Meadow' which was revived in the 1970s, and it has been a Classic Liberty fabric since 1986. (4) Part of the elegant Flowers of Liberty homeware, kitchenware and giftware collection centrered around three favoured prints (Betsy, Theodora and Wiltshire), is the Theodora Liberty Print Cafetière Cosy. (5) Ranunculus swatch, part of the Liberty Art Fabrics. Photography via Tumblr. (6) Windrush B Tana Lawn Cotton (currently unavailable from the Liberty website), from the Liberty Art Fabrics collection. (7) And yes... As it just so happens that we are Mirabelle by name and Mirabelle by nature, I could not resist displaying a third Mirabelle Tana Lawn colourway! This one is Mirabelle F Tana Lawn. The crisp and dainty Mirabelle Tana Lawn florals are hot contenders for future curtain projects of mine! (8) The last time I was in Liberty was on a short trip to London, back in March 2012. Read all about it from The (Late) Lowdown on London.

Find out more about Liberty's heritage.

Lady Penelope

First time Mirabelle spotted 'The Lady of Shalott', the thought of Penelope came straight over (as Penelope is mythically known to painstakingly unweave by night the needlework she had accomplished by day, as part of some unspoken pact she had made with herself while waiting for her Ulysses to return). Hope is conveyed to the lovelorn with the message that love comes to those who wait (or so are we made to believe)!

Sources: (1) 'I am Half-Sick of Shadows Said the Lady of Shalott' (1916), oil on canvas by John William Waterhouse. A product of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood movement, the enigmatically-named painting actually refers to Lancelot. One wouldn't be mislaid to view it as being imbued with Dante Gabriel Rossetti's influence and essence, with the classical Greek elegance and mysticism carried by an abundance of detail and grace while maintaining an idea of distance, sultriness, mystery and imminence. From an interesting perspective, the artwork (produced is 1916) is chronologically at odds with the Pre-Raphaelite timeframe (second half of the 19th century), thus designating John William Waterhouse as a Modern Pre-Raphaelite. (2) 'Mariana' (1851), oil paint on mahogany by Pre-Raphaelite painter Sir John Everett Millais. Picture via Tate Britain. We have a mystical 'Penelope' theme going on here too, in the form of the passage of time carried out gracefully through yearning and weariness. When it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1851, the painting was accompanied by a few lines from Lord Tennyson's poem 'Mariana' (1830): She only said, 'My life is dreary,  He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!'.