Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Florence Broadhurst fabric


0704 Florence Broadhurst fabric
Originally uploaded by rooruu.
The story of Florence Broadhurst, who invented and reinvented herself (leaving her rural Australian childhood far behind) is a remarkable one. You'll find a version in Gillian Armstrong's inventive docficfilm, Unfolding Florence.

In the latter part of her life, she was the designer of lush and amazing fabric and wallpaper designs. Her designs are now produced by Signature Prints, and are Not Cheap. Beautiful, desirable, amazing, stratospheric.

But occasionally you luck out, and find a weekend sale. Well, $40/m is still not cheap by any measure (even if some quilt fabrics run at $30/m or more here in Oz, eg. some Japanese ones and Amy Butler ones on heavier fabric) , but it's distinctly different to $140/m and on into the stratosphere. The fabric quality is heavy weight, high, the fabrics apparently 'baked' after being screened. Probably better for bags, certainly the orange and the blue.

But having learned a bit about her life, enjoyed the film and admired the fabrics, it's nice to own a little bit to play with.

More about Florence Broadhurst here and here and here.

1 comment:

Le said...

hello there ... just watched the doco on sbs and isn't she and the designs rather special.

great to see a resurrgence in interest - cheers le