Friday Favorites: DD and Leslie Tillett

I am inspired by so many things, I decided that every Friday, I will highlight a favorite person, thing, or idea. Maybe you will be inspired too! See all past Friday Favorites here.

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Photo by Irving Penn

D.D. and Leslie Tillett…I have had a crush on their painterly fabrics since discovering them in a shelter magazine many years ago (pre-internet). I ripped those pages out and have held onto them all this time, it was all I knew of the Tilletts prior to our current internet days. I love the colors of their fabrics, their fresh, preppy feel. It was their floral prints that got me.

A simplified version of their story is that D.D. (the woman) fell in love with Leslie when she went to see the fabrics that he and his brother were printing in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The two married, and together continued to produce beautiful floral and shell-printed fabrics. Their subject matter spanned not only flowers, but shells, fish, raspberries, you name it. Probably their best known print is the Chrysanthemum print, I love that the flowers seem to burst like sparklers.

They moved to New York in 1946, by all accounts, seemed to be the darlings of the design world. Their fabrics were a favorite of Jackie Kennedy and were used in the White House during her time as first lady.

A recent exhibition of their work at The Museum of the City of New York, and I was scheming ways to travel east to see it.