Fabulous British Fabrics

Shirley Craven and other designers at the Hull Traders textile company produced some of the most original and popular fabrics in Great Britain at mid-century. With their big, bold patterns and bright colors, with long vertical repeats, the fabrics — silk-screened by hand — were most commonly used as drapes for the new modernist buildings of the time, a perfect foil for enormous windows and stark interiors. Here are a few fabrics produced by Hull Traders. For the full story of Shirley Craven and Hull Traders, see the Summer 2011 issue of Modernism.