Into the archives: Modern Rarity’s unique prints
Discover how the John Lewis & Partners archive inspires the most popular prints used today
When Modern Rarity was launched in 2016, the brand’s aim was to offer timeless, refined pieces in elevated fabrics. To add to the timeless feel, the design team took inspiration from prints taken from the John Lewis & Partners archive.
The John Lewis & Partners archive dates back to the 1800s and is so prolific that it’s housed in a dedicated Heritage Centre in Berkshire. Packed with tens of thousands of painstakingly catalogued prints and artworks, it’s a veritable treasure trove of inspiration. ‘People love the sense of provenance and uniqueness behind our patterned pieces,’ explains Rachel Page, Partner & Assistant Designer on the Modern Rarity brand.
This archive print, called Mavourneen, dates back to 1916. It has been reworked into a new pattern called Feathered Floral for spring/summer 2019
For Rachel, a visit to the archive can spark the direction of an entire season’s collection. ‘Many of our trends are inspired by what we discover at the Heritage Centre,’ she says. ‘For example, maybe we’ll be taken by a print from the 1940s and we’ll start researching around that,’ she says.
A dress featuring the reworked Mavourneen print – now called Feathered Floral
The design team manipulated the Mavourneen print to make it fresher and in harmony with the season’s colour palette
A trip to the Heritage Centre will see Rachel and fellow design team Partners photographing the dozens of artworks, wallpaper patterns and upholstery swatches that capture their imagination. ‘Even in the years we’ve been working on the brand, we’ve only chipped away at a small section of the archive,’ she says.
They will then create a shortlist and start reworking them digitally in Photoshop. ‘If a background has a texture and we like it, we’ll keep it and just change the motifs slightly; if the background makes it feel dated we’ll take it off so it looks clean,’ she says. This process can take up to two weeks per pattern.
A dress for spring/summer 2019 features a Stem Floral print reworked from the archive sample below
“Our customers love the sense of provenance and uniqueness behind our patterned pieces”
The Stem Floral print in its original form. It was a Liberty design originally painted onto tracing paper
The main challenge of referencing the archive is to ensure that the final print feels modern and exciting. The fabric chosen plays a huge part in this, and can pose unpredictable challenges along the way. ‘It’s trial and error,’ explains Rachel. ‘Sometimes we’ll try a pattern on a sparkly fabric and the result will just work perfectly first time around, and that’s a great feeling. But occasionally it doesn’t work out so we have to go back to the pattern and treat it in a different way.’
Two winning patterns for spring/summer 2019 include the Stem Floral and Feathered Floral. Stem Floral was inspired by a colourful Liberty design originally painted onto tracing paper. Rachel reworked the motif into a continuous print and adapted it to the season’s more subdued colour palette. Printed on black chiffon, it features on a ruffled, oversized shirt and a flowing dress.
Keeping the prints looking modern is a key focus of the design team when referencing the archive
A close-up of the new Stem Floral print
The Feathered Floral design is taken from a pattern called Mavourneen and dates back to 1916. It was woven by the reputable Reid & Taylor in the Scottish Borders. The colour has been adapted from a pale blue and claret to more wearable colourways, fusing dusky pink with mustard-tipped petals and a charcoal background with grey petals.
The archive is gradually being digitalised, so that scanned references can be obtained directly by Partners regardless of their location. But for Rachel, nothing will match the experience of manually trawling through the catalogues to glean inspiration. ‘I’ll continue to go to the Heritage Centre to see everything physically,’ she asserts.
