Patterns of the Past: A Visit to Patrica Nugent Textiles Design Studio

This week our fashion design class visited Seattle's Patricia Nugent Textiles. Lucky us! It's rare for beginning designers to get this kind of opportunity to meet with an expert in historical textiles and design, and we're fortunate to have a teacher like Julie Snow, who set up the studio visit.

Pat has a textile archive that numbers in the thousands, dating from the 1790s to 1970; that's a lot of fabric and paper. Her customers are designers of textiles, apparel, stationery...anyone who wants a unique pattern or design treatment pulled from the fabric bolts and graphic artist imaginations of the past.

Stacks and stacks of fabric tied neatly with ribbon.

The studio space is brightly lit, with tidy bundles of fabric and baskets with swatches mounted on cards. The textiles are categorized by labels a customer would use to describe what they're looking for, so when someone tells Pat, "Show me something that's kind of floral and art deco," she goes right to the category they need.

When a customer buys a design from Pat's archive, they have exclusive use of it. And often, they're not getting just one design. For example, say a print has separate floral and paisley design elements. The customer's designer can take apart the design elements and create new motifs. They can create a border treatment, make a new repeating design, reorient the elements—with one swatch purchase, they're getting as many different designs as their imagination allows.

In addition to fabrics, the archives contain original designs on paper.

Pat showed us some designers' books from the early 1900s, and for me these are some of the most fascinating parts of the archive. A book had page after page of designs from a single, unnamed designer who likely worked for a textile manufacturer. Painted in gouache, many of the designs were no larger than a half-inch across on a paper swatch not much bigger. Who were these designers? Were they artists in their off-hours? Their creativity and skill at the small scale was amazing. There was one tiny illustration of a man and a horse on its hind legs enclosed in what looked like a Hula Hoop. What the...? I should have got a picture, but didn't.  Coulda woulda shoulda.

Today I was telling a friend about the studio visit, and we talked about how common it is for artists to use their skills for making a living in a job that's not really related to their art. For example, my friend has worked as a graphic designer, but painting and photography are where her heart is. I've worked for years as a technical writer, but that's not why I studied Comparative Literature and poetry. But we all need to buy groceries and cat food, right?

Martin: house painter, artist, all-around Dude.

My husband's grandfather was a house painter, but an artist as well, and painted a mural of exploding Mount Vesuvius in his living room. Here he is at his easel; I wish I'd met him. Look at this guy! He's grooving on painting on canvas, and he'll get up in the morning and go paint someone's grocery store. I like to think that it's unnecessary for artists to fall into some sort of Gordon Comstock despair and think they're selling out if they make a living using a portion of their natural skills to put food on the table. That said, it's a pain in the rear to not get any time in one's life to work on one's art and instead use all one's skills to describe software menus.

Pat Nugent shows us vintage Suzani textiles.

Anyhow, there were plenty of designs to look at. After showing us some highlights of her collection, Pat was kind enough to let us (carefully) peruse the categorized baskets. If you have any interest in vintage textiles or design, this would be your candy store. Just looking at the swatches is inspirational, and got me thinking that instead of solids, I'd like to use some vintage patterns in my designs. I'm a big fan of prints from the 20s through 50s, and somewhere in Pat's archive is the perfect design. I think many of the students in our cohort will be returning to the studio as customers.

Thanks for the tour, Pat! And thank to Julie for setting up a very fun and educational evening!

UW students peruse Patricia Nugent's archives

Third Avenue Gem

Do you ever cheat when you walk across the street? You know: you start walking in a perfect perpendicular line to the street you're crossing, but then you cut a corner and veer inward toward the middle of your destination block to save time, or because you're lazy, or just because you can.

So I was crossing Third this morning and did that veering thing towards the front of the downtown Seattle YMCA, and watch out! I'm glad I didn't veer more, as I would have stepped on him. The roach was just hanging out on the sidewalk about 8" from the curb. I stopped and poked him with the toe of my shoe (clog, actually). Yep. Alive.

Mr. Roach

Mr. Roach, in context

But look at him; isn't he kind of pretty? You can see why insects have inspired beautiful jewelry for thousands of years. They possess symmetry, combine pleasing, rounded shape with strange, wiry appendages, and their armored exoskeletons are so opposite of our own anatomy.

Egyptian gold ring inlaid with lapis
lazuli scarab and glass, 1350 B.C.
Image credit: Susie Ward Aber

When I saw the King Tutankhamun exhibit in 1978, I really loved the scarabs. Whodda thunk someone could get so inspired by a beetle that they'd create something so beautiful?

I'm no entomologist, but I do want to clarify that roaches and scarabs, while related to the level of the infraclass Neoptera, belong to different superorders and orders. Scarabs are beetles of the order Coleoptera, and roaches Blattaria (as are termites). I also want to come clean and clarify that this insect taxonomy thing is stuff that I had to look up to write about it.

About 30,000 scarab species exist, and Egyptians long ago viewed the sacred scarab as a form of the sun god Khepri. I don't know if there have been any cultures that viewed the cockroach as the embodiment of a god. Perhaps we could make the roach the "God of the Unsanitized Gym Shower Stall," or "He Who Waves in Delight at the Midnight Restaurant Dumpster Bounty."

For a lovely story about an insect pet and information on actual bejeweled beetles, check out The Holy Enchilda's blog.

Phyllis Diller chicken

I remember seeing Phyllis Diller do stand-up on TV, and thinking, "Wow, that is some amazing old lady up there in that mini dress & awful hair." She was completely unlike anyone I'd met, because I mostly grew up around Quiet People of the Northwest. Who wore loud dresses like that? Certainly no adult whom I knew.

Being in horse 4H, my sister and I spent several days each summer at the fairgrounds. We'd constantly tour the barns when we weren't preparing for or attending show classes, and we loved visiting the poultry barn. We called any chicken with a crazy, tufty mop-top a Phyllis Diller chicken.

Today I was walking through Westlake Park and saw the back of some booths, and the words "Puyallup Fair" on a banner. And then I saw it: a petting zoo.

Now, I get a little squee-nutty around farm animals. I adore them, and want to take them all home and give them lemon bars and serve them tea in dainty china cups. So when I saw the pygmy goats, sheep, the rabbit, and the two chickens at the little mini-farm, whose intention is to lure us city folk to the state fair that starts this weekend, I was all over them like the kitten who shredded my hand in Mexico this spring. Except, unlike the kitten, the petting zoo inhabitants mostly ignored me. And there was no blood shed. And no rabies shots afterwards.

We should be so lucky to be like Phyllis Diller when we're older. Actually, we should be like her now, fashion sense and all. This little chick's for you, Phyllis.

Decades of style: my mom

It's only appropriate that the first post of this blog should star the woman who knew Frederick & Nelson Tea Room first-hand. My mother was fashionable then, and still is. She has an eye for detail, and most important, has always known what flatters her shape, coloring, and style.

One of my mother's first jobs was in the Seattle Bon Marche Infants' and Children's department in the 50s. She and friends would dine at the fantastic standbys that used to feed and entertain Seattleites who worked downtown: Other Place, Outrigger, Pancho’s, and Plaid Piper. Rhodes Department Store had a lovely  restaurant overlooking the main floor, and a live organist. There was Trader Vic’s, and Von’s, both great places for cocktails.

Up to around the 50s, a department store clerk wore a black dress and a string of pearls. It was a simple, elegant time for fashion. During WWII, rationing had limited the availability of fabrics and colors, and as usually happens, restrictions create new standards which are adopted and altered: when manufacturers aren't allowed to put cuffs on blouses, people figure out other ways to lend style to outfits.

Here's to Mom! 

This is probably at the Arboretum Japanese Garden

At my grandparents' house in Fremont

At The Fat Hen in Ballard, 2012