Celebrating Popular Culture: International Travel

Anyone who looks closely at quilts of the 1945-1970 period

finds glimpses of Paris, Mexico, Hawaii and Holland in the prints

on the theme of international travel.

Fifties Feedsack celebrating transportation.

Architecture around the world

Novelty print for a skirt

France was a favorite theme

As were tropical islands

and "primitive cultures..." 

Many attribute the craze for foreign cliches in prints

to the returning WWII vets who brought Hawaiian shirts

with them...

Which trickled down to feedsack prints

and rayon dress prints.

Venice in border prints for skirts

Parisian train stations

Feedsack with European houses

It's one thing to celebrate the architecture and landscape but

designers of the times seem compelled to include cliched

representations of the population.

Monterey Mexican prints were extremely popular for kitchen textiles.

Asian people

And the Dutch children were everywhere.

Better to stick with dogs than human stereotypes.