Go bold or go home

This is the season of art you can wear.

Bold and artistic patterns are all over clothes, bags and footwear.

At Chanel, 150 different tones from a 15th-century, color swatch board charts by Royal Talens, a company that produces oil paints for artists, are the pattern inspiration throughout the collection.

Prada, on the other hand, uses art mural portraits on dresses, coats and bags in bold color combinations. The six artists who painted the portraits are acknowledged for their work, which is a rarity in the industry. Pop art street style in stencil cutouts and collages are standouts.

Valentino’s Egyptian graphics made with highly decorative embroideries highlight beauty in craftsmanship.  Design duo Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli highlight works of art with intricate beadwork and ethnic-inspired embroidery that are significantly couture level.

Alexander McQueen goes for graphic geometry using Mondrian grids, Picasso geometry in his African period, perforated and lattice cutouts, graphic checkboards, and grid and block patterns.

At Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, over-scaled quirky drawing styles, doodles and writings in Brancusi, and Ellsworth Kelly color palette art references make bold statements. Castelbajac even opens the show painting a dress in real time, while the models walk the runway.

At Miu Miu, it is Art Nouveau style. It is another defiant view of feminism for Miuccia Prada. Miu Miu’s prints took inspiration from the interior world — from the children’s room cartoonish pussycat wallpaper to the typical Milanese parquet floor. Prints don’t end there.  There are also a plump goldfish leaping out of a bowl, a rendered parrot, delicate stylized florals, surreal images and retro prints in pastels and a mix of brights.

At Matthew Williamson, everything is hand-drawn, hand-dyed, hand-cut and hand beaded. Bold prints of flowers in hand drawn sketchy style and embroidered dragonflies and butterfly wings depict a wild English garden.

Spring blooms

Perhaps florals are the clearest signal of the change of the season. Spring is here. Go for soft, hand-painted, and romantic themes or go the opposite — bold, flat, and abstract.

Go the soft and romantic trend for a more formal feel. Take a look at a modern take on French artist Henri Rousseau-inspired jungle florals at Hermès.  Simple silhouettes are decorated with oversized hand-painted exotic water lily florals, palm and leaf prints.

Tory Burch takes the romantic garden florals scene. “Those prints were actually developed from a photograph I took of my garden in Southampton,” says Burch.

Liberty florals and fading and merging blooms are seen at Paul & Joe for an easy, breezy summer vibe. Elie Saab’s spring blooms show up in rose gardens, bouquet arrangements in deep border prints, bleed and watercolor marks, and a graduation in texture. The feminine collection comes from flower colors of camellia white, rose pink, vibrant bougainvillea, and intense green.

Antonio Marras goes botanical with illustrative landscapes and delicate roses in a soft color palette.  Standouts are his over-scaled floral cutouts against sheer fabric on dresses.

Clean, and crisp vectorized blooms bloom on runways. Marni and Emporio Armani layer multicolored flowers and foliage while Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors use mid-sized blooms in simple two-color patterns. Overexposed florals, crammed daisies in mono-print, and monochromatic color are the all-over print layouts of Stella McCartney.

Digital Art


Take your cue from Mary Karantzou and Clover Canyon for engineered prints. Clover Canyon shows clever pattern-on-pattern inspired by SoCal landscape and architecture, particularly mid-century exteriors, swimming pools, and the Hollywood Bowl. Some even include architectural blueprints. Hussein Chalayan interprets St. Tropez scenes using out-of-focus photography in delicate pastel hues. Deck chair stripes and tropical images combined with 3D multicolored textures are ultra-feminine and modern. Dolce & Gabbana takes an imaginary journey through ancient Greece. Lithographs of sepia-hued, postcard-style crumbling columns, Greek temples and theaters are printed over silk dresses.

Another London label known for its kaleidoscopic patterns, Peter Pilotto just had a successful collaboration with Target. The print-happy collection in modern cuts went online last Feb. 9. These usually high-end designs were available to everyone at friendly prices.

For those still feeling their way on prints, start slowly with accessories.  The season has a myriad of bags and shoes with fabulous prints to choose from.

Here’s a quick print update this summer: Get a fan. It will be your best friend in the summer heat and the easiest addition to be on the print trend. Take your pick from Monchet y Compania’s collection which has a 63-year history of making abanicos. The prints are so summer-happy.

Stripes and checks, tartan experiments, kaleidoscope layouts, optical patterns, digitized prints, and floral blooms are meant to be mixed and matched this season. Go bold or go home. Now, don’t tell me fashion isn’t fun! It’s time to pattern play.

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Send queries and suggestions to jo@joyceorena.com. Follow Joyce on twitter @joyceorena or instagram @jo_joyceorena.