Photography by Alise O'Brien
When Marshall Watson was hired to design the guest suite of a traditional Ladue home, he decided to wrap the room—walls, curtains, pillows, and bed linens—in indigo toile from luxury fabric brand Bailey & Griffin. “I used the fabric as the French typically did—which is everywhere!” he says.
The bedroom recalls French interiors of the 18th century, when toile was employed as the primary—if not the only—fabric in a room. “At the time, toile was very expensive, so when the French decorated entire rooms in it…Yes, it was an aesthetic, but it was also a means of showing off the family’s wealth,” says Jill Lasersohn, co-founder of the Toile de Jouy International Foundation.
Toile is the term given to a monochromatic figurative scene printed on cotton with the use of a copper plate. Although the French brought this technique to international renown, it was invented by the Irish in the mid-1700s when they discovered that adding cow urine to traditional mordant thickened the mordant sufficiently for it to adhere to copper plates. This printing technique produced more finely wrought designs than did its predecessor, the carved woodblock. What distinguished toile from other patterns of its era, such as florals and geometrics, was its fine lines and shading. “Artists were suddenly able to create very detailed scenes,” says Heather Hughes, manager of the study room for prints, drawings, and photographs at the Saint Louis Art Museum. “Now toile is quite ubiquitous and traditional, but at the time of its creation it was cutting-edge.”
Courtesy of Saint Louis Art Museum
Like the pattern seen in Watson’s bedroom design, the earliest toile iterations were of pastoral scenes—agricultural laborers, shepherds, herdsmen—and evolved to reflect important events of the era, touching upon everything from politics to architecture to travel. But the aesthetic was only partially responsible for the fabric’s popularity; the rest can be attributed to a well-timed shift in French economic policy. The French government had outlawed the wearing and use of printed cotton in 1686 to protect its wool and silk trade but lifted the embargo in 1759, opening the door to alternative fabrics. “Suddenly people were not relegated to damasks and velvets in their furnishing fabrics. Cotton became the fabric of choice. Light, washable, durable…it was the perfect vehicle for this new printing technique,” says Hughes, who is co-curating an upcoming exhibit about toile and its history, set to open May 24.
And though the technique that made toile famous has largely become obsolete thanks to digital technology, the fabric continues to adorn houses around the globe. Vicki Dreste of Maplewood’s Design & Detail likes to use toile in small quantities. For homeowners who are intrigued by the look, she suggests a modern approach in which toile isn’t the focal point but instead one of many patterns used throughout a room. Watson, on the other hand, says that toile was a natural fit for the guest room project because the existing furniture—a French antique desk and a four-poster canopy bed—lent itself to the fabric’s romantic quality. “Using toile throughout creates a soft, endearing, cozy feel…particularly appealing for a guest room.”
As Lasersohn of the Toile de Jouy International Foundation notes, good design is good design: “Do you ever tire of a good stripe? Or a good damask? The same can be said of toile. It is a classic.”
