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DECORATING USING TOILE STYLE
by Ronda Young
Toile, the subtly elegant printing technique that tells stories in
engraving-like detail, traveled a fascinating history of its own to become the
enduring favorite of designers, decorators and homeowners everywhere.
Toile, pronounced twal, is an abbreviation of toile de Jouy. The name comes from
Jouy-en-Josas, France, where the first plant to commercially produce this type
of printing was established in 1760. The initial toile was a monotone, one-color
print, rendered in intricate, engraving-like detail on a white or cream-colored
background.
Typically, the images were scenes that told a story. Drawings might retell a
myth about Roman gods, or chronicle ships' sailing adventures, or simply depict
days in the life of a French farming family.
The triumph of toile as today's decorative darling is far from simple, however.
When Christopher-Philippe Oberkampf opened a print shop in France in 1760,
reverse images for toile prints were carved into wooden blocks. Ink was applied
to the blocks and then transferred by hand to un-dyed cotton. Only the rich and
the royal, including Louis XVI, could afford the results of this painstaking
process. Later, in a stunning example of industrial espionage, Oberkampf
discovered in England the secrets of etching designs onto a copper-plate roller.
He and his brothers wrote the directions for this process on cotton percale
fabric, using an alum solution tinted with red dye, and then dipped the fabric
in vinegar to render the writing invisible until after they crossed the Channel.
By utilizing their stolen information, the Oberkampfs significantly expanded
both their market and their fame. Napoleon himself bestowed on them the Legion
of Honor. Still later, in an unrelated but ironic twist of fate, British troops
destroyed Oberkampf's factory in Jouy-en-Josas. Brokenhearted, the printmaker
died shortly afterwards.
Today, toile triumphs, but only the engraving-like quality of the printing
method remains true to its original. It is not uncommon for contemporary toiles
to be printed in more than one color and appear on a colored background. The
themes now encompass just about any subject that strikes a designer's fancy.
An exotic combination of parrots, pineapples and palm fronds, for example, grace
a tropical pattern in a vintage Tuscany wallpaper and border collection. This
theme enhances all design styles, from contemporary to traditional, and is
especially well suited to today's popular bamboo and Oriental furnishings. It
exemplifies toile's ease of use in all settings.
A more traditional toile appears in Winnetka, another wallpaper collection. This
features a classic repeat of laurel leaves, each underscoring etched renderings
of a rooster and other French country scenes. The slightly crackled background
adds the patina of age.
In another toile, small birds flutter among flower-bedecked boughs, all in a
blue and white pattern that looks as if it were etched in ink on a rich,
cream-colored background. It was based on an antique fabric pattern.
Because toile patterns can make an elegant design statement all by themselves or
provide a unifying backdrop for other patterns in a room, there is often at
least one toile in many collections. On wallpaper, the simplicity of images,
rendered in the characteristic etched form of a toile, brings pattern to a wall
without interfering with other design elements.
From a distance, toiles first emerge as a pleasing overall background design. On
closer look, as these subtle images come into focus, they engage the onlooker
and become as interesting as an engraved art print. Few other design techniques
can accomplish the dual role of creating both an unobtrusive, elegantly discreet
setting for all of the objects and furnishings in a room, and, at the same time,
lend distinctive, standalone art to that interior.
(c) Copyright 2007 by
YoungWorks
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