Floral patterns - what are they called?

February 29, 2008 9:24 PM

Name that pattern! I've seen some really nice designs lately that feature a stylised floral pattern running in a repeating, seamless motif.

The pattern is often a tone of the primary colour and connotes an old world, luxury feeling. It makes me think of expensive wallpaper. What is the pattern called and where can I acquire a copy?

I thought that the pattern might have been a brocade or a jacquard but I can't find a good match when I search those terms.

posted by dantodd to media & arts (15 comments total)

damask?
posted by acorncup at 9:26 PM on February 29

Toile? William Morris? This is still pretty vague.
posted by Madamina at 9:52 PM on February 29

Presumably it's not a paisley.
posted by Class Goat at 9:53 PM on February 29

Damask is actually more of a technique than a specific pattern -- there are different kinds of damask. Same with jacquard and brocade. Toile can mean either, but that's usually a scenic pattern with people and thus probably isn't what you're talking about. And I might be wrong but I believe Wm. Morris is not a specific pattern either.

Dantodd, I think you're going to need to post examples.
posted by loiseau at 10:03 PM on February 29

william morris wallpaper - do any of those images seem like the kind of thing you're after?

Also possibly you're thinking of the new clean computer style called "vector art", which often samples Victorian floral designs as silhouettes on a colored background?
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:10 PM on February 29

If you want Victorian silhouettes for use in a computer project, you can also get any of the Dover series of clip art book/CD-ROMs. for example.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:14 PM on February 29

Thanks for your good answers so far. The pattern that I am most fond of at present is in the background of this template.

The first few patterns in Acorncups link are also pretty good examples.

I think that is most effective when the background and the pattern colours are close in tone.
posted by dantodd at 10:34 PM on February 29

I think I know what you mean, but I don't know what it's called either.
There are lots of patterns on here though, so maybe you can dig through their archives until you see something that looks like what you mean and then you can point to a picture and someone with better patterns vocabulary will know what it's called.
posted by easternblot at 10:37 PM on February 29

floral patterning like that was quite popular after William Morris and during the Art Nouveau period, should that be of any help. As for a specific name, I'm not aware of one, but I may trawl wikipedia later to see what can be seen.
posted by Smoosh Faced Lion at 2:31 AM on March 1

I've lived in several houses with seventies wallpaper very similar to the template you linked (example). One of them was the house I grew up in and my parents put the paper up, so it was definitely from that era. I think it's supposed to be an "updated" version of Art Nouveau style and I've also seen examples in museum exhibits of textiles etc from the Art Nouveau period.
posted by shelleycat at 2:45 AM on March 1

My first thought was Damask as well. link
posted by saucy at 5:11 AM on March 1

dantodd: heh. Right this minute I'm working on a new blog skin with nearly the same outlines as your example. I picked up the original vector file from istockphoto (keyword: wallpaper) and tweaked it to tile correctly.

For what it's worth, there's nothing close in Dupont-Auberville's The World of Ornament which means it's probably post-1875. I thought damask was a style of weaving, rather than ornament?
posted by Leon at 5:28 AM on March 1

I don’t think there’s a single, simple term for your pattern, but useful keywords include:
ogee: the general type of the repeat structure of the pattern
baroque + floral: the style of the design arranged in the ogee structure.

Obviously any style of design can be arranged in an ogee repeat.

Victorian flocked wallpaper also gets some good hits.

I also think the term whorehouse wallpaper evokes the style perfectly, but couldn’t find any images to back that up...
posted by dpcoffin at 9:49 AM on March 1

I should correct that: Ogee is a good term for the S-curve-based elements of the OP’s pattern, the forms that contain the isolated motifs. The REPEAT structure is I think called a half-drop. A typical repeating ogee-type design is usually a half-drop, but the term doesn’t refer to the repeat structure; it’s about the curves.
posted by dpcoffin at 2:07 PM on March 1

Thanks for all of your excellent answers. I am surprised that there is no name for this type of pattern given that we have names for just about everything else!

I especially liked dpcoffin's technical answer and Leon's suggestion of how to source a similar image.

Thank you all again.
posted by dantodd at 4:42 PM on March 1