Liberty of London: An Inside Look at the Prints

In 1875, Arthur Liberty took London’s fashion industry by storm when he opened a small shop on Regent Street. In 1884, he pushed on to Paris. Over 140 years after opening Liberty of London‘s doors, the supremely unique textile company is world renowned.

Today, each collection Liberty puts out is accompanied by a captivating story of art, collaboration, and design. In the past they’ve worked with people from all walks of life, including children, tattoo artists, and recently even a famous chef. Each story is supported by an underlying theme tied to every collection. Today, we’d like to take a closer look at some of the Liberty prints sold by Mood Fabrics and reiterate some of their tales.

Earthly Paradise Collection

In 2013, Mo Coppoletta, one of London’s most popular tattoo artists, won a chance to design a print for Liberty Art Fabrics. After their first meeting with him, he was then invited to collaborate on two additional designs for their Autumn/Winter collection. Here at Mood, we now carry three colorways of one of those creations – Daydream, which you can see above.

According to Coppoletta, one of the biggest challenges in tattooing is designing something to fit the body, which is three dimensional. For fabric, it’s flatness brings much more possibility, but not without it’s own obstacles. One of the trickiest parts to this project was figuring out the repeat, he said in an interview on The Liberty Craft Blog.

The Flower Show

This gargantuan series from Liberty Art Fabrics featured 7 different stories with a range of botanical influences: Tresco, Guerrilla Gardening, Chelsea Flower Show, Vienna, Classroom, Florals, and Botanical Garden. The entire series featured over 40 prints.

This print above, Joan Larke, was a part of Guerrilla Gardening, which is a movement determined to beautify neglected public spaces around the world. Joan Larke specifically was inspired by a field of lavender near Westminster Bridge Road, which was planted by guerrilla gardeners. This whimsical print was created in hopes of catching the meadow’s ethereal spirit.

Also part of The Flower Show, Vienna features artwork inspired by both the foliage and architecture within the city of Vienna. Above is one of my favorite designs, Hazel, which actually combines two Liberty prints from the 1890s. The originals were bought by Vienna’s Museum of Decorative Art and are now on display there.

Below is my all-time favorite Liberty print, and unfortunately Mood is selling out of it fast. Floral Eve, featured in Botanical Garden, is the result of art and science coming together. Rachel Pedder Smith’s enormous botanical painting ‘The Herbarium Specimen‘ served as the main source of inspiration for this print. The original work, which is over 5 meters long, took 766 days of meticulous work before it was completed.

So do you know the story behind any of the other Liberty Art Prints? Tell us your favorite in the comments below!