Printed designs from the early 1920s are characterised by their small, regular and repeating motifs, predominantly brown in colour. By the end of the decade, colours are brighter, and motifs are influenced by Art Deco and other broader cultural movements.
The TRC is fortunate in housing a collection of books, postcards, garments and textiles, donated in 2017 by Pepin van Rooijen in Amsterdam. The donation includes a large number of woven, printed and embroidered textile samples that used to belong to the French artist and designer, Professor Yves Cuvelier (1913-2005), who was closely involved with the Parisian fashion industry in the decades after the Second World War.
Sample of printed cloth with a design of small Paisley (buteh) motifs in cream and brown on a mid-brown ground, 1920s.With his third wife, Monika von Venningen, Cuvelier collected thousands of textile samples, with the idea of using old designs to create new ones. Following the death of Yves Cuvelier, most of the pieces in the collection were acquired by a designer in Japan who wanted to use the textiles to inspire Japanese textile designers. The rest was sold to various people in Europe and America.
Pepin acquired part of the collection with the aim of using them to illustrate a series of textile and fashion books. He later moved to another form of publishing and very kindly gave the textiles to the TRC Leiden. We believe there are c. 9000 textiles in the group given to the TRC and over the last few years we have been slowly cataloguing and photographing them (currently nearly 7000 of these pieces are accessible online).
The Cuvelier/Pepin collection includes a wide range of printed textiles from the 1900s to the 1990s, including many pieces that are dated to the 1920s. A selection of these textiles, plus some others that were acquired from other donors, are given below in order to indicate the range of patterns, colours and textures that were available to dress makers (professional and domestic) during this period of social and economic change.
