Homeless Toile de Jouy

Rachael Fry, a senior in Communication Design at Parsons, made this Toile de Jouy wallpaper, lampshade, and dinnerware. From afar, the beautiful patterning catches your eye, but up close it becomes apparent that the tiles patterns are scenes of real homeless people in New York City. She writes:

“Since the 19th century, Toile de Jouy, a French textile pattern, has been used within the context of luxury. This decorative motif [typically] depicts pastoral scenes. By blending real homeless individuals into a contemporary Toile landscape, I hope to offer a personal interpretation of this traditional pattern that will provoke thought on art, design, and poverty.”

I love how the wealthy might adopt this pattern as a way of humbling themselves, even falsely, especially because if this were manufactured the pieces would probably be very expensive. Rachael also mentioned to me that the strong connection between money and food was a source of inspiration to her. More and full size images on my Flickr – Link.