fun for the butterflies

Whether the coming spring has the most peculiar of effects on my wardrobe, or am I finally getting over those unpleasant childhood memories, I do not know. But many things gradually change as I grow older. I used to hate print – any print, of any shape and colour, on any fabric, garment or object. Then in the beginning of my old blog .origami mon ami I bought a stripy t-shirt – yes, that’s classified as print in my world. I hated it, it looked like a cheap rock’n’roll cliché, but with all I did for my loved one back then…I learned to live with it and more stripes followed. Then the prints got a bit more complicated – I got hooked up on intarsia knit, graphic Nordic prints. Enter the checker prints, especially those of flannel shirts. Soon followed the tie-dye, dip-dye and paint splatter effects. Last summer I became a slave to photographic prints, especially those of trees, owls and horses…soon the animal prints appeared, in small details, but the tiger, snake and leopard are a happy family of scarves, shoes, tights and belts. Very recently you’ve witnessed yet another print invasion – polka-dots – the print I used to hate for many years with all the passion given, but it works, it lives happily in my wardrobe alongside with stripes, tie-dye, checks, animal, Aztec and photographic prints.

Harmony and cacophony all at once!

My latest venture into the print world has a VERY special background, because the new print is the flower print!
Why am I making such big deal about flower print? Well, let’s consider this: as a child growing up in the remains of the Soviet Union, on the edge of the village, adjacent to a big factory town. You live a stone-through away from a river and a forest, your granny has a garden with vegetables and fruit trees and she dresses you in flannel dresses with flower print, and makes you wear cotton shawls with flower printed border, tied up under your chin babooshka-style. Then in your house the lino floor covering has flower print, so do the carpets, curtains, tablecloths. The flower-printed sofa has a cover with flower print on it, the upholstery of the armchairs has got flower-print too…and so does every chair in the dining room, where the wallpaper has a different flower-print to the one of the living room…the guest room, the bedroom…and they all have different curtains and furniture, as previously mentioned, with flower-print. The cups, plates, saucers, tea-pots – all with flower-print, taking in account that each single plate has a different print. The cutlery has flowers engraved. The big grandfather clock has flowers carved into the wood. The bed-sheets have flower-print, different to the flower-print of the pillow-cases, bed spread, and the white tulle pillow-covers with woven flowers on them. In the kitchen the table is covered with rubberized cloth, it has a psychedelic 60’s flower print, so do the orange and yellow saucepans. There’s even a tiny pot near the sink to keep your toothbrushes in – it’s blue with pink flower-print, and the towels have big woven flowers – each member of the family gets a different one, with different flowers. And in every room there are lovely paintings that my great-grandfather painted, they are mostly landscapes with flower fields or still-lifes with bouquets of flowers, because his favourite subject was wild flowers. And when not at home, I used to play in a shed that my grandmother also wallpapered with flower-print, I used to make dresses for my dolls from the scraps of flower-printed fabric that my grandmother bought to make dresses for herself – she always wore exactly the same shift-dress, but she had it made in all different fabrics with flower-print, cotton for summer and wool for winter, and her favourite fabric was the light-blue one with tiny white flower-print. And may be it’s just worth to mention, that my home-town of Ivanovo is a well known industrial town which is specialised on production of flower-printed cotton…it’s like the Liberty print really, but more Russian-style. That was the key product of the city made in massive amounts, which means most of the Ivanovo citizens worked in the textile industry, very much like my mom, grandmother and my godmother. My grandfather was a technician at the factory which made flower-printed cotton…well, he didn’t design a thing, but he looked after the flower-printing machines. Um, a question: if you were to consider this, imagine you or me or anyone else in the same situation… Would you ever want to see the freakin’ FLOWER-PRINT again??!!
They say time heals all wounds, but not without help, I add. Thanks Hunting and Collecting! Thanks Emma Cook! I think my flower-print trauma is finally resolved and I’m running silly and happy with those gorgeous flower-printed trousers on.

So much fun for the butterflies too.
tank top Acne
cardigan Opening Cermony via RA13
trousers Emma Cook via Hunting and Collecting
nailpolish Essie and Barry M