Your Saturday Culture Scroll
feat. Toile, Antonia Fraser's Louis XIV & GANNI Woolens
21st & 18th reports on culture. Covering art, history and fashion and featuring interviews with voices in fashion and leaders in the arts. Written by Lauren Lynch Wemple (@lolynchwemple). Follow 21st & 18th (@21stand18th) on Instagram.
Today’s Saturday Culture Scroll features my latest obsessions across Art, History and Fashion. I hope you’ll find a tid bit of something new to inspire your next read, purchase or tablescape…
ART
Art Collecting
This is a tangent I’m not yet prepared to go on about yet however since I attended a lecture at the Timken Museum of Art, featuring a West coast based art collector’s sculpture collection, with my dear friend Lady A last week, I have been obsessed with art collecting. Specifically, talking with collectors and understanding why they are drawn to certain artists and periods and talking with artists about how they decide to sell what and at which price. I know some of our Readers and Patrons scrolling today are collectors of art works, if you’re willing to connect with me for an interview, I’m keen to feature an art collector and get stuck in. If you too are keen, feel welcome to write me at lauren@21stand18th.com.
Also, major plug for the lecture and event series at the Timken Museum of Art, it is $15 or free to attend, if you are a member, and the topics range from deep dives into their collection and those of colleagues like the National Gallery of Art in DC to conversations with conservators, collectors and other leaders in the arts.
Toile
Is toile considered art? Toile is a motif, a design, but it is always seen sketched, printed, drawn, painted or embroidered, which are all art forms. Looking at toile in this way, we can indeed say it is a valid art obsession. I am obsessed with toile because I really enjoy looking at various patterns, they’re incredibly interesting to the eye - sort of like adult I Spy books - and I’ve been doing a lot of looking at toile patterns because I’m preparing to launch my brand, J. Gray, we design and manufacture linens and other table top and home products. Once of such products is a line of linens and other textiles that will be embroidered with our J. Gray Toile - sneak peek below.
I became even more enamored with toile after learning about its history: A German born turned French man, Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf (b. 1738 - d. 1815), born into a family of dyers, who through ingenuity, creativity and ambition, became a globally lauded and forever remembered textile designer and craftsman. Oberkampf, owned and operated the Oberkampf Manufactory, and was given the title of Royal Manufacturer by Louis XVI, created what we refer to as ‘toile’ today in 1760 when he set up the first Toile de Jouy business. Toile de Jouy was more than the patterns that we recognize as idyllic countryside scenes today, it also designated the type of fabric, a tightly and well woven batiste like cloth made from cotton or silk (that’s the ‘jouy’ part of the phrase) and the ‘toile’ tacked onto it denotes the patterns printed on the fabric.
What was revolutionary about Oberkampf was the fact that he invented new printing and textile weaving processes that allowed he and his team to save time on the making of fabric and spend time on the printing of motifs. Oberkampf’s original toiles were historical and bucolic French scenes in red or green ink on white fabric.
Fun fact: Oberkamp also invented the process for creating and printing on wallpaper, as we know it today. We salute you, Monsieur.
HISTORY
Antonia Fraser’s Louis XIV
My current reading list consists of two tomes: First, a re-read of a 1980s historical fiction romance novel that I won’t detail here for fear of judgment by strangers and the next, Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King by Antonia Fraser. The book reviews the history and extraordinary life of Louis XIV (b. 1638 - d. 1715), one of the great (certainly the most depicted in contemporary pop culture) Kings of France by exploring his relationships, in fantastic detail, with the women in his life, specifically: his mother, Anne of Austria, wife, Maria Theresa of Spain, and official mistresses: Louise de la Vallière, Athénaïs de Montespan, and Madame de Maintenon. Each woman brings something very different to Louis’ life and reign playing a massive role in his maturation and achievements. Reading the book impresses upon one how much love Louis XIV had for the Woman. He regards Woman as an archetype of everything, a multifaceted goddess who is beautiful, kind, saintly, motherly, sensual, interesting etc, and because he never managed to find one complete amalgamation of these things IRL it’s almost as if he collected women who embodied each of these assets…Fascinating. Good gift for the coming holiday season.
I recommend reading this book via eReader, I am a Kindle girl *sometimes*, because Fraser does not scrimp on details and her books are dense, dense in a good way but dense no less. When reading on a Kindle you don’t really think about how long the book is, and I have found that reading biographies, especially when 30+ of the male characters have the same 3 French first names, is made more enjoyable when you don’t know how far through it you are.
FASHION
GANNI FW ‘24 Woolens
Specifically this Dark Blue Wool Sweater, which I have worn almost every day in October. I purchased this sweater, along with this fabulous ivory and black gingham dress that has silver threads and creates an iridescent murmur when being worn, in Soho at the beginning of September when it was still too hot for wool, but today’s autumnal crispness felt ‘round the nation has decided it - I’m going full wool. I adore wore, all types and thicknesses and levels of scratchiness.
This sweater is $325, 100% wool and a rich and chunky navy blue. The shoulders are purposely dropped which lends further to the relaxed, oversized look. I’m obsessed with this sweater because it is soft and warm but more so due to the fact that the oversized torso combined with the dropped shoulders and boiled wool aesthetic-effect, achieved by the flat, combed wool weave, allow you to remain buttoned up and elegant as well as comfortable and “not too styled” looking. It’s refreshing to find a sweater that is comfortable but not frumpy and formal without having embellishment or being fitted, because, let's be real, I think we are all tiring of the oversized-disheveled-Gen Z-look.
Wear over a collared short sleeve polo or draped over your shoulders and tied at the neck in an architectural knot.
Thanks for scrolling. See you next week. Cheers.