ABSTRACT
The literal translation of Toile de Jouy is simply ‘cloth from Jouy.’ It specifically refers to textiles printed at the factory of Christoph-Phillippe Oberkampf, founded in 1760 at Jouy-en-Josas. Contemporary designers of interiors and fashion textiles have been reinvigorating the form of ‘Toile de Jouy,’ and their reinterpretations rely heavily on the cloth’s historic context. Although the popularity of Toile de Jouy prints has ebbed and flowed since the emergence of the style, the print was never relegated to the dustbin of outdated fashion. Unlike many other motifs and patterns that date back to the eighteenth century and have been updated and modernized for the current market so as to be nearly unidentifiable from their earlier ancestors, the visual characteristics of the Toile de Jouy have remained remarkably unchanged.
