It would be difficult for me to live my life in a world without beautiful and artistic patterns. The V&A has a Mary Quant exhibit at the moment. I recommend you visit it if you are able. The website also offers downloadable patterns if you’re more skilled with a sewing machine that I am.
It would be difficult for me to live life in a vacuum without a pattern. Not in the sense that you have to follow a routine. But beautiful and artistic patterns. I was 18 years old and walking around Moscow when I saw an older man wearing a nearly identical blue argyle sweater to mine. I ran over to him and suggested we take a photo together. It is now one my favorite photos: the two strangers beaming. We didn’t speak the same language but we were able to converse sartorially. Sometimes I think about him and see that photo like a picture with an old friend.
I had a strong Pringle phase and was subject to many jokes about golf. There was then a tie-dye period, but this was likely because I lived too close to London’s Camden Market. Damask wallpaper is my obsession, but I am too poor to afford Osborne & Little so I order samples from the internet and make collages in my hallway. Are you really an adult until your houndstooth trousers are well-cut?
My girlfriend gifted me a Persian rug that really ties the space together. It is amazing. There is a blog dedicated to one man’s quest to document every single one of Wetherspoon’s carpets. There are 950 of them, each with a unique and interesting pattern and made on old-fashioned weaving machines.
I love design classics: the Memphis Geometric pattern dominated the 1980s (see Mr Motivator’s leotards). Brightly coloured, random triangles and squiggles are what you’ll see. It’s all fun and games! The Pride flag is a great design, even though Hannah Gadsby described it as “a bit busy.” There is no rest for the eye. (The original flag was created in 1978 by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco artist. The colours were also coded. Hot pink was not used in the current flag. It was only for sex. Yellow for the sun. Nature gives us patterns. The shimmering, glittering sun that shines on the lido’s surface. The insane plumage of a Mandarin duck. My God, how did we deserve giraffes leopards and tigers!
Magic Eye picture books were my obsession as a child. I loved making marbelled paintings and kaleidoscopes. It’s the rose windows in cathedrals and Matisse’s work that fascinate me as an adult. Although I am not from Scotland and do not have any French blood, is it possible to live a life without the tartan and Breton strips?
