Another season has finally come in and Fall 2014 is upon us. The new collection has arrived, it looks fabulous and boy do we have some fabulous prints to share with you!
Last summer we at Mata Traders took a good look at the Fall 14 forecast and fell in love with this idea of crafts. We already have embroidery in every season and sometimes we add a bit of ikat into the mix, but for this season, we decided to focus on a pattern fully dedicated to cross stitch. As you know, I have personally become fascinated with cross stitching (thanks to my good friend Haley), but here was a chance to play with the image of the craft rather than actually cross stitching a dress. Now that we had our concept, we needed a subject. The forecast was full of vintage florals. We decided to merge the two ideas; vintage florals and an illusion of cross stitch.
Cross Stitch Roses. Textile Design by Shifra Whiteman. Garments by Mata Traders.
Creating this particular pattern was really fascinating to create. From the beginning, we wanted colorful flowers with a dark background so that the colors, no matter what we chose, pop! We started with a grid made up of the letter "x" and used illustrations of 3 different flowers. Then, we used 3 different shades of the same color to show the shading between each petal and 2 shades of green for the leaves. After playing with 3 different types of flowers, we decided to use only roses. The next step was playing with scale. We had one word on our minds…BIG! We wanted everyone to see each "x" printed on the fabric.
Left: Oberlin Dress Middle: Hello Dolly Right: Loyal Love Dress
We held our breadths waiting for a sample to come back and see if this pattern would even look good. Thankfully it did! The whole design team fell in love with it and the vintage look with a modern twist looks awesome. We love it so much that Mata Traders decided to make 3 dresses with the fabric! Check out the Oberlin Dress, a wonderful cut perfect for any lady (especially ladies with curves), or the Hello Dolly Dress which could be paired perfectly with a cozy sweater! But my favorite dress is the Loyal Love Dress. It is such an elegant garment that could be dressed down for work just as easily as it could be dressed up for a wedding.