Nico in Soho

Nothing to wear and need to be glam? The usual same old same old from the high street chain stores just don't cut it anymore. Well you are in luck! In the heart of Soho is Nico Didonna, who creates exquisite conceptual clothes, refined and beautifuly tailored.
Yesterday a friend was picking up a couple of new outfits from Nico's latest collection. Perfectly tailored, one dress could even be worn eight different ways. Absolutely stunning! Even better, the price tag wasn't!!
Why would you ever go back to the high street same old.

Verneuill and the Full Decorative Experience

Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

Some of the most dazzlingly decorative pattern work produced in recent times is that by designer Maurice Pillard Verneuill. From about the end of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, Verneuill produced a consistently high standard of decorative work that could be used as both a source for practical application as well as an even richer source of inspiration.

All five of the examples shown in this article were originally published in 1897 and although to all intents and purposes Verneuill's style can be firmly placed within the realms of Art Nouveau, there is always usually much more to the work of a designer than a handy period name in which to place them. In some respects decorative art periods and eras can often be seen as more of a convenient framework in which to coral creative people of their day, rather than being necessarily and entirely accurate. Therefore, many designers can for example be dropped into Gothic, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Modernism, etc. However, many are placed into these categories when only one facet of their creative style fits the period, most creative people are multi-faceted and have an annoying tendency, at least to writers of coffee table books, of not entirely fitting the mould of the decorative period. Often these annoying extras are conveniently ignored or briefly explained away as a one off anomaly, or even as some form of negative quality within their career. However, this is to ignore the complexity of the individual creative who often brings in design elements from any number of sources including childhood, literature, past and present likes and interests, family, friends, cultural and religious connections, and many more. It is the complexity and the ability through that complexity of not fitting entirely and conveniently into decorative periods that have usually been designated long after the style era has passed, that should be both celebrated and widely acknowledged as the human creative condition.

Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

To see it within a contemporary framework, at some point in the future our own era will have a name attached to it, which will be neatly packaged and designed, leaving no untidy extras. Most of us will be forced to inhabit this style era even though many may well feel that they had little if anything in common with the designation. However, as we may all be long dead by then, we will have little in which to argue otherwise. It does raise the rather complex issue of future generations having a decidedly different view of events as well as individuals and their creative careers. Do we and our descendants forcibly manipulate the past creative world to suit our own agendas and tidy world view, placing everyone within eras such as Art Nouveau, Art Deco, etc.? Every creative person would like to be seen, and probably deserves to be seen as an individual, outside of the constraints of an imposed design era. Unfortunately, that won't happen anytime soon and so we are left with the inexact and often crude decorative style eras imposed by others.

Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

To be fair, to some extent at least it could be said that Verneuill fits well into these imposed decorative eras, particularly with his portfolio work which was meant to be practically applied by designers and companies through a range of disciplines. Therefore, he produced a number of portfolios of work throughout the period of the 1890s and 1900s that clearly followed at least the generalised ideals of Art Nouveau. He was still popular in the 1920s and was by then producing much more Modernist influenced work which appealed to the new post World War I decorative era, what would eventually be classed in the 1960s as Art Deco. However, as already stated, this can only ever be an approximation and there are far too many internal and external factors regarding the individual creative, to make labels either altogether meaningless, or an unhappy approximation.

Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

Although much of the portfolio work that Verneuill produced in 1897 contained pages of either singular or multi-patterned choices, I have chosen five examples that give what appears to be an almost all-encompassing decorative experience. Here Verneuill has allowed the page to become a set in which a number of factors of decoration have been allowed to enter, interestingly inclusive of decoration for three dimensional pieces, ceramics in particular. Although many ceramicists did use Verneuill's work and others to decorate a range of practical and decorative ceramic ware, many of the portfolios gave only flat pattern as examples. Verneuill has interestingly expanded this to include vessels with idealised pattern work. All of which gives these pages in particular an overall feeling not so much depth, which is passed over quite lightly with a superficial perspective, but a genuine depth of pattern that almost luxurious in its rich use of line and colour. 

 Illustration: Maurice Pillard Verneuill, 1897.

In some respects, these pages which to all intents and purposes were meant as a practical and technical tool, have taken on a distinctive appeal all of their own. They give a genuine understanding of why decoration and pattern is so important not only to the decorative artist and designer, but to humanity as a whole. These pages are a celebration by Verneuill of the appeal, passion, even necessity of decoration which is shown to be both timeless and within its time. By this I mean that although Verneuill produced work that was obviously influenced by his own contemporary world, one that was heavily intrigued by the many differing aspects of Art Nouveau, he also incorporated elements of design and decoration that made contacts with not only previous decorative eras, but previous cultures. Creative people rarely limit themselves to their own contemporary era and often gain inspiration from either the physical survivals from the ancient past, or even that daydreamed from ancient cultures and eras. It all adds to the vocabulary of the creative individual and their resulting work, which in turn adds to the full decorative experience. Although Verneuill may not be as well known today as perhaps he should be, these pages must surely give an indication as to the high status he naturally held as a decorative designer.

Further reading links:

Biophilia, Nature and Decoration

Illustration: Hargreaves. Printed textile design, 1849.

Biophilia is the concept that humans have an innate biological need for a consistent connection with nature for their physical, mental and social well-being. It is this connection, or lack of, that gives us either a harmonious balance within ourselves, or a build-up of frustrations, alienation, illness and aggressive and unbalanced behaviour. Although the connection between the human species and its natural surroundings is by no means a new discovery, tagging the phenomena with the term biophilia does allow it to become both a contemporary talking point and focus for debate and exploration.

Although biophilia and biophilic design is mostly concerned with architecture and the human environment, allowing a mixture of man-made and natural phenomena within mostly urban environments, there is a case for expanding at least the general understanding of biophilia, to include the human decorative experience, with its innate need for stimulus and expression from the natural world. The potential of nature based decoration producing a similar harmonic balance within humans, certainly when compared to the minimal aesthetics expanded from the Modernist era, is perhaps self-evident. Considering the thousands of years of near constant nature-based human decoration compared to the few decades where lack of decoration was seen more as an intellectual gesture rather than an emotional one, it is perhaps hard not to see the connection.

Illustration: Photo taken in the local environment by the author, June 2012.

Biophilia sees decoration and ornamentation as natural analogues, that is secondary stimulation, in other words a connection with nature that is removed from direct contact, a representation of the real. However, despite the fact that decoration can only represent elements of the natural world through different mediums such as textiles, ceramics, glass, wood and metal for example, the connection is much more fundamental than just one that is visually motivated. Humans have spent most of their life as a species connected to nothing but the natural world. Our urban societies are a near-contemporary phenomenon and are therefore not really connected with the many memories and deep-rooted attachments to nature that were formed over countless generations. It is this attachment that has made nature-based decoration such a fundamental core value in human decorative arts.

The urban experience is often blamed for the uncoupling of humanity from its attachment to the natural environment, eventually resulting in indifference, neglect, even alienation of the environment outside of the city landscape, and certainly affecting our responsibilities towards a harmonious natural environment. City life in many respects can appear artificial and divorced from the world around it and certainly in a number of cases from the planet itself. Biophilia means to reconnect urban humanity with its long-time partner, nature. However, I wonder whether the link has ever been truly broken in all human concepts. Physically and practically, many of our urban environments contain much more concrete than plant life and creating an environmental harmony between the two may take some time or never really be achieved satisfactorily. 

 Illustration: Example of crewel embroidery work, 19th century.

Although many may not have the luxury or opportunity to experience nature as an enveloping partner in life, many still have emotional and spiritual connections with the natural world. That these are often manifested through decoration found on personal possessions such as jewellery, clothing and skin, personal or communal spaces, online personas and many other forms of personal and public contemporary life, shows how important the connection with nature still is for many. The old and faithful relationship between human and their natural environment is still jealously guarded by many and is manifested in a number of small ways whether that be physically through a flowering plant or compact herb garden, or imaginatively through the idealism of a perfect retreat which is very often set into or surrounded by a natural landscape.

By reinforcing our love of nature through the use of decoration and pattern within all of the mediums at the disposal of the artist, designer or maker, whether through industry or craft, allows us to constantly reaffirm our connection with the natural world. Many may find themselves living in a largely man-made environment, but flora and fauna decoration, whether through big flowers on a pair of curtains, leaves on a wallpaper, birds on a bed cover, unconsciously and consciously connect us with the life of our ancestors and the natural and real environment of the planet.

Illustration: Ceramic mural from the Mosque of Ibrahim Agha.

Artists, designers and makers will never tire of reinterpreting nature through fine art, pattern and craft. It is this continual and constant use of nature as first hand inspirational source material that keeps many in the creative community permanently in a state of wonder at the many manifestations of the natural world.

Further reading links: