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By: Bowie Style,
on 11/27/2016
All the Fruits have recently created a brand new website featuring their stylish geometric patterned cushions, textiles and wallpaper. Following the huge success of last year they've also launched a new colourway for their 2017 'wallpaper calendar'. All the Fruits was founded in London in 2013 but is currently based in Bologna. It is run by is run by illustrator Stephen Cheetham and interior
By: Bowie Style,
on 10/9/2016
MissPrint were excited to announce the launch of two new wallpaper designs recently. The first (above & below) is 'Songbird' a whimsical design featuring detailed drawings of birds nestled amongst graphic leaves. The second is 'Five Feathers' a featuring hand drawn stylised feathers that were inspired by collections from MissPrint's travels. Each pattern comes in six colourways - all of which
By: Bowie Style,
on 8/30/2016
Tresillo is the new, fashion-inspired collection of eclectic fabrics and wallcoverings from Harlequin. Released this month Tresillo is a modern collection of "soft, geometric motifs, subtle but statement patterns and effortless organic designs" that have been inspired by Latin America. It has a lively and imaginative colour palette, grouped together in combinations that are vibrant and
By: Bowie Style,
on 4/11/2016
John Lewis is also a great place to spot new designs from MissPrint, and I was pleased to see a new range of ceramics and kitchen storage. Products in the range include tins, storage jars, a milk jug, teapot, salt & pepper set, ramekins and egg cups. MissPrint also have a new wallpaper design since P&P last reported on them, a smart hand drawn geometric called Nectar.. And
By: Betsy Bird,
on 2/28/2016
Happy Leap Day! Unlike Leap Day William here I have no candy to bestow upon the weeping children of the world, but I do have some keen links. First and foremost, this old newspaper article (possibly The New York Times) courtesy of Andrew Fairweather. It’s a little difficult to read here but it says, “THE QUESTION: As a librarian, what was the most unusual request ever made of you?” Between the voracious pygmy pig, the nightingale being attacked and the primo embalmer, these are some good reference questions!
Thanks to Andrew Fairweather for the image.
What’s that, you say?
You said there’s Carson Ellis wallpaper out there?
I’ll take three houses’ worth, thank you.
Thanks to Alison Morris for the link.
And finally, Boing Boing recently highlighted these shoes from Irregular Choices. And though they may require taking out a loan on your home, I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to bequeath them to me in some manner. I’m a size 9 1/2, in case you’re curious: 
Previous shoe-related posts may be found here.
By: Bowie Style,
on 2/24/2016
I was inspired to create today's post after seeing the cover image on the latest edition of Country Homes & Interiors magazine. It features a vivid floral spring floral by Clarke & Clarke. The wallpaper print is called Ariadne's Dream by Kim Parker from her Artbook collection. The range features various beautiful florals on both fabrics and wallpaper and can be seen online here.
By: Bowie Style,
on 9/24/2015
Our second post on Autumn Winter 2015 home decor is from Next, who also have a mid century style collection with this textured black & white leaf design. The print features on wallpaper, bedlinen, rug, cushions and wall art. Here is a selection of patterns recently arrived in store.... Read the rest of this post
By: Bowie Style,
on 9/21/2015
P&P favourite Ingela P Arrhenius has created a brand new children's book for French publishers Marcel & Joachim. Called 'Animaux' it's a poster sized book measuring a large 46 x 34cm and features 32 different animals illustrated in Ingela's graphic retro style. The names of the animals are of course all in French although Dutch, Italian and Spanish versions are also planned. Fingers crossed
By: Patrick Girouard,
on 8/5/2015
By: Bowie Style,
on 7/21/2015
I came across this photograph of wallpaper flower fans on the Lookbox Living blog from Singapore and wanted to find some of the striking papers they had used to create these beautiful decorations. One of those featured is 'Totem' (seen below) from Tres Tintas and designed by creative duo PotiPoti. Another design used was Abstract Malachite by Christian Lacroix. Next up is
By: Bowie Style,
on 7/20/2015
My next home decor selection is from Scion's latest collection 'Levande' which features some fabulous prints on fabric and wallaper. The collection was inspired by hedgerows and was designed by Hannah Bowen who won the Harlequin Award at New Designers in 2013 and now works for Scion. 'Levande' is Swedish for 'living' and Scion wanted to create playful patterns that give people cosy and familar
By: Bowie Style,
on 7/20/2015
And finally today we have some wallpaper patterns from Brighton based husband and wife design duo Baines&Fricker. The latest arrivals include humourous sketches of cats and dogs, but I was also drawn to the fashionable cacti and beautifully stylised minerals. The papers are all digitally printed in the UK and can be found online here.
By: Bowie Style,
on 7/20/2015
Sanderson's latest collection is a riot of colour and bold print. Called ' Papavera' the collection is refreshing for it's simplicity of form, with geometrics such as Milla which was made from cutting paper. There are also lots of florals including poppies the flower which has the Latin name Papavera after which the collection is named. The designers have played with scale and texture across both
By: Bowie Style,
on 6/25/2015
Mini Moderns have released the latest wallpaper in their Hinterland collection. The collection takes inspiration from the Kent coastline and its surrounding countryside and the newest pattern 'Equinox' is the result of an exploration of the agricultural heritage of the county often described as the Garden of England. The design pays tribute to the corn dolly - plaited straw ornaments,
By: Bowie Style,
on 6/9/2015
St.Judes have announced the forthcoming launch of the latest fabrics and wallpaper by Angie Lewin. Birch Tree Sun was inspired by Angie's 2006 wood engraving Five Trees and her 2010 screen print Winter Birches, the embryonic design for the new fabric, which we first saw in her 2010 book 'Plants & Places'. Birch Tree Sun wallpaper and fabrics will be available online here in late summer 2015.
By: Bowie Style,
on 5/29/2015
UK retailer Next have added some new homewares to their selection as part of their High Summer 2015 range. One of the collections is Wild Meadow which features yellow ochre and soft greys with a watercolour florals and country inspired prints. Other collections feature contemporary geometrics using grids and triangles, exotic tropical inspired designs with supersized florals and butterflies,
By: Bowie Style,
on 5/18/2015
With the Surtex show now in full swing it's worth noting that other shows are taking place at New York's Javits Center at the same time. One of those is ICFF, a leading international interior design event, where UK company MissPrint are launching two new wallpaper designs. 'Foxglove' and 'Woods' are from their forthcoming 2015 collection, which will be available, later in the year. The two new
By: Bowie Style,
on 3/25/2015
P.L.U.T.O is the latest wallpaper design from Mini Moderns. Whilst designing their Hinterland collection - based on Dungeness and the surrounding Kent countryside - Mini Moderns were intrigued to learn about the area’s rich military history. The P.L.U.T.O. wallpaper is named after The Pipe Line Under The Ocean - a fuel line running under the English Channel to supply fuel to the allied D-Day
By: Bowie Style,
on 3/4/2015
Ailsa Lishman is a recent graduate from Manchester School of Art where she studied a BA (Hons) in Textiles In Practice. Ailsa specialised in printed textiles using a a combination of screen printed and digital techniques to create her designs. She loves to play around with mark making and abstraction to create fresh and exciting surface pattern prints. Ailsa recently completed a three month
By: Bowie Style,
on 2/4/2015
Harlequin have released a brand new collection for spring 2015 is named after the native South American hummingbird, Amazilia. The collection channels the current trend of bringing the outdoors in and features tropical influences from fashion. Louise Collis from the Harlequin studio has been working on this eye-catching botanical collection for the last 18 months. Louise explains her
By: Bowie Style,
on 1/16/2015
Today I am featuring some of the new Spring Summer designs which will soon be appearing in the shops. A copy of the new Next Directory catalogue recently arrived at my door and two collections caught my eye Geo and Retro Flower. The mid-centruy modern style designs feature on curtains, blinds, cushions, wallpaper and bathroom co-ordinates.
By: Bowie Style,
on 1/13/2015
The 'Home' show was co-located with Top Drawer this week at London Olympia. One of the highlights was the launch of Mini Moderns three new Hinterland prints. The fourth wallpaper in the range was 'Gulls' which was launched alongside 'Pluto' and 'Equinox' to complete the collection which was shown in it's entirety for the first time. See more about all their products including bedding, paint
By: Bowie Style,
on 11/19/2014
Today's posts feature fresh design collections from Villa Nova. Nottingham based Villa Nova are part of The Romo Group and they design and produce an eclectic range of furnishing and upholstery fabrics as well as wallpapers. This September saw the launch of several new collections including the colourful 'Makela' with its bold, graphic prints comprising of standout florals, abstract geometrics
By: Bowie Style,
on 11/18/2014
The next collection from Villa Nova is 'Avebury' a unity of classic and modern style. Available in six colour groups, quince, charcoal, lime, petrol/Ink, coral and orchid it features geometric and organic patterned embroideries made with handcrafted elements. These include a screen printed tree motif with hand embroidered highlights, a classic trellis appliqué with hints of embroidery and a
By: Bowie Style,
on 11/18/2014
Fabric and wallpaper brand Scion were thrilled to see that the new John Lewis Christmas advert features two of their eye-catching Scion Living rugs: Kaleido and Yoki. The pattern designs were taken from their best-selling fabrics and made in conjunction with leading rug manufacturer Brink & Campman. This gave me the perfect excuse to check in to Scion and see what else was new since we last
Wow, I never knew I wanted wallpaper until this very moment.
On that first one, are we certain it was a pig, and not a person?
First, please God let my daughter not see those shoes. The girl is a serious shoe obsessive and daddy is tired of single-handedly supporting Zappos.
From the linked Brooklyn piece:
“Of the 3,500 children’s books reviewed by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center in 2014, only 400 were about indigenous peoples and people of color. Only 292 were written by an indigenous person or person of color. For every one indigenous writer or writer of color who was published, there were 12 white writers.”
African-Americans are 13% of the population, and that number has been stable for a while. Native Americans are just under 1%. So if publishing were perfectly balanced of the 3,500 books surveyed 910 would be about those two populations. If perfect parity is the goal, we are at about 44% (Check my math, I’m not a STEM person.)
Unfortunately not all percents are equal. 14% of the population is AA or NA but that 14% controls a much smaller percentage of the wealth. As a guy who couldn’t afford to buy a hardcover until well into my 30’s, I can tell you that people without money to pay rent are not going to buy a $17 hardcover. Which means black kids are going to be more dependent on libraries, less likely to hand B&N what may amount to the difference between keeping the lights on and not. Unfortunately, we are not exactly showering money on libraries. If we seriously mean to get more books to more POC readers, more money for library acquisitions would be very helpful.
Good luck with that. I’m sure that’ll be high on Donald Trump’s to-do list.
Another approach is of course to cut the cost of books. But these are not publishing’s salad days. Publishing is under financial pressure and thus ever-more-obsessed with creating big hits, mirroring what’s happening in movies. In fact Hollywood plays a very big role in creating YA megahits – Hunger Games, Harry, Twilight, Divergent, TFIOS- but has far less interest in younger titles. The hits pay the bills for the mid-list, so we all want to see the hits keep coming, but the model means publishers will tend to go “safe” rather than risky. Are books starring POC less likely to make it to the big screen? Did you watch the Oscars?
One obvious solution to cutting cost is e-books. E-books do not need to be $9.95, that price is more about not undercutting the paper market than it is about actual costs of production/distribution for e-books. Many schools, even in poorer districts, are making laptops available to students, so in theory e-books would be part of a solution. But but one of the things that has really surprised me is the resistance of even YA readers to e-books. And in any event publishing has approximately zero interest in cutting into their already thin profit margin or increasing their already substantial risk.
So, OK, a system where profit-hungry publishers are reluctant (or unable) to cut prices and are anxious to create more BIG books, is not going to solve the problem. This is a capitalist system, capitalists chase profit, and if 14% of the population only controls 1% of the wealth, that’s a problem.
There are small-bore solutions that have small-bore effects, but so long as the system is a beast in search of money rather than social justice, the solution is unlikely to come from publishing. Social pressure will move the needle a point or two, but probably not more. It won’t make up long-term for the absence of POC lead characters (or writers.)
Adding to the steepness of the slope are demands that books about or by POC be bibliotherapeutic, which is why, Betsy, I appreciated your piece the other day on giving permission to writers of color (and white writers) to write entertaining stuff rather than feeling pressured to write definitive, transcendent works of high literature.
It is incorrect to say that writers of color cannot get published. It takes 30 minutes to put a manuscript up on Amazon. The difficulty is in getting paid. (This is the United States: it’s always about money.) And getting paid requires profit. Profit requires sales, which takes us back to 14% with just 1% of the wealth. Boil it down and we need to go from 400 books to 910 books, more than doubling current output. How do we do that given the various gvens?
I have an idea which is probably dumb, but what the hell. Why not create a minority publishing non-profit funded by a voluntary and self-imposed “tax” of, say 1%, on more well-paid writers, and a matching amount from their publishers. In effect this would be a redistribution from only the top end, the equivalent of raising taxes on the wealthy. A writer earning more than 200k (just a place-holder number) would contribute 1% of everything above that amount, and publishers who hit a certain threshold of sales on a particular book would match that amount. That would put hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars (again: not a math person) into this non-profit. Use a third of the money to develop POC talent, a third goes to poorer kids in the form of a book voucher they can use in any bookstore, bricks-and-mortar or digital, and the remaining third goes to support school library acquisitions.
This would not require a revolution in the system, it would cost publishing very little as they’d only be giving up a small fraction of their most successful titles. 90% of writers are bleeding heart liberals and I think response from writers would be good. (I’d have no problem with it, neither would my wife.) Publishers and writers could take it as a deduction on taxable income, so the net cost would actually be less than 1%. Money in the form of vouchers would flow to the 14%, from thence to the retailers and some of it would go back into the non-profit. Minority writers would get some support, perhaps in the form of development grants, and school libraries in poorer districts would get some targeted cash for acquisition of the titles produced in connection with the non-profit corporation. In theory we’d have created a viable market parallel to the existing market, and if sales resulted we’d have a sort of proof-of-concept. If the bigs saw sales (and hence profit) being created they would leap like hungry tigers to exploit it, and problem solved.
The details would be a bitch, but since in the end it’s a pretty basic (and quite small) wealth-transfer I don’t think it would be insoluble. But you don’t change capitalism by yelling at it, capitalists seek profit (as well they should) and no amount of pressure will make a lasting change in that essential dynamic. So let’s go Bernie Sanders on it, tax the rich, support the not-rich a little. In theory this would give us more writers of color, more books about POC characters, and thus: a market. Try it for ten years, re-evaluate.
Then again, it’s probably a dumb idea because in addition to not being a STEM person, I am also not a businessman as my accountant will enthusiastically attest.
We are not certain at all but we’re hoping desperately for it to be a pig. Really really hoping.
Wow, I feel shallow after that marvelous comment but I just have to ask you, Betsy–what’s the strangest reference question YOU’VE ever had? And would you ever wear a hat like one of those?
Strange isn’t quite right. As a children’s librarian when you get asked things it’s sort of on a different level. My favorite was the kid who came in (couldn’t have been more than 4 years old) and asked for the book about the woman in the white hat, “SHE’S NOT A PILGRIM!!!” and the baker and baby Jesus. Upon further questioning he mentioned a pasta pot. Don’t know how baby Jesus worked into all of that, but he was thrilled when I pulled STREGA NONA off the shelf.
The issue of diverse books is about supply and demand. There’s less supply because there isn’t a demand for those books. More diverse books are being published but getting non-poc to buy them and read them is really the problem to be solved.
I think this is in part a consequence of the insistence by many of the well-meaning that books by or about POC be bibliotherapeutic. “Good for you” books. Minority kids want to read Hunger Games, too. A black Divergent or Fancy Nancy or Wonder would be the best thing for minority representation in the market.
I don’t believe readers reject minority characters, the big fan favorites from my own Gone series (setting aside the ‘hot’ white sociopath,) are an undocumented Honduran gay boy and a black lesbian. This list of fan’s top ten Animorphs books includes two with Cassie, an African-American girl on the cover who also serves as narrator: http://cinnamonbunzuh.blogspot.com/2012/12/ifis-list-of-lists.html. I can check our royalty statements but I don’t think there was a fall-off in sales for books with a black character on the cover, and that was almost 20 years ago. I think some publishers believe a black face on the cover hurts sales, but if it’s an entertaining rather than a “good for you” book, I suspect they’re wrong.
Preee-cisely my point. The only reason people think black faces don’t sell is that so much of those time those faces are set against sepia backgrounds. Fun Fact: Sepia doesn’t sell. Brown covers? They do not sell. Not if the book looks old-timey.