Fashion Designer Mimi Plange Debuts Collection of Window Fabrics

How did your experience in fashion help in designing your collection with The Shade Store? 

As a fashion designer, I’ve had to learn to balance the desire to be an artist while being conscious of the functionality and end result of what I am creating. Whatever I create has to be useful and beautiful while lasting a long time. There is a lot of listening that takes place before you make a garment, and there are so many people you are working with in the process. You have to be open to different points of view and always remain curious and not be rigid in your approach. You fine tune your designs and make sure that not only you love them, but your intended consumer loves them as well. Your challenge as a fashion designer is being of service to others while making sure that your vision is coming through.

As a creative, what was your favorite part of the collaboration?

Window shades were a completely new realm for me, but I used this approach to enter the territory like a curious child who was innocent in this new space. Because of this training, my favorite experience of the collaboration was in the research and development process with The Shade Store. I visited The Shade Store factory in Florida and got to see how their craftsmen worked together and learned about their techniques. I got to see first had the range of possibilities and gathered as much inspiration as I could in their showrooms. It was a fun challenge to explore how I would combine my sense of “unfashion” with their aesthetic, and reimagine this idea of window treatments in the home.

Tell me about the patterns and textiles you gravitated towards and why you thought they would work in a home space?

A lot of my design principles stem from geometry, symmetry, and ancient African textiles from West Africa. On one of my visits to Ghana, my mother took me to a small village where there were several weavers making authentic Kente cloth. The men would work on these very small wooden looms and weave these thin strips by hand. The whole process was love at first sight for me. Africa is just rich with resources, especially when it comes to textiles and patterns. The continent has been informing modern day design since the very beginning. Original indigo dye fabrics from Mali and woven Mud cloths were all explored in my research as well as the linear patterns of scarification performed on bodies and drawn on wooden carvings. There is such a nice simplicity within the complexity of African art. The works are always organic in feel, and I wanted to capture this essence in our collaboration with The Shade Store.

On another spectrum, I was also inspired by vintage Victorian prints and wallpapers and wanted to bring this familiar style to what I consider to be a playful and whimsical animal print. Being born in Ghana and raised in California, there has always been a desire to connect contrasting worlds and bring different cultures together. I fell in love with fashion when I discovered period films. I specifically loved the Edwardian and Victorian eras, so I always try to include some of these references in my work. I knew these patterns would work in the home, because these design elements already exist in the home. My designs are just giving a different, perhaps bolder view of the basics—florals, stripes, plaids and furry friends.

You’ve done collections for home before; what new challenge did you face in designing window treatments and how did you tackle that?

Often, window treatments can sometimes be seen as an afterthought. I wanted to turn this concept a bit upside down and create something that was striking, but also timeless and classic. I wanted to push beyond conventional ideas of what window treatments are. It was a bit easier for me to create something bold because I was coming in without these preconceived notions about what it should look like, so I decided to take note of things that had worked in the past, but not allow myself to be restrained by that. I decided to remain true to my core and be free to explore and not be defined by what had been done. I just went for it.

Your prints are so striking—tell me about conceiving the graphic look of the Geometric collection.

I have a passion for African body adornment, specifically scarification which is the ancient practice of intentional scarring of the skin for beauty, healing, or spiritual reasons. Though this work is no longer practiced in most African countries, you see it in many wooden sculptures and artworks today. I really wanted to create a pattern that reflected this linear design that I have grown to love so much. Despite its unique and controversial history, these patterns have been adopted, developed, elevated, and used for textiles over the centuries. The simplicity of the work is elegant and far reaching, and I always want to share the stories of traditions and where things began. There is an obvious focus on geometry for Geometric Grassweave. Here the pattern is about repetition and creating my own visual textile representative of the continent of Africa. These elements of simple lines and shapes are the groundwork for the meditative maze throughout the pattern. There is storytelling in every line and markings, which are also inspired by old Kente weaving designs. I especially loved the combination of this print with The Shade Store’s grassweave texture—it really brought the whole concept to life.

The art in the Botanicals and Victoria collections are so beautiful, it could have been culled from a drawing or artwork. How did those design come about?

My introduction into fashion started with period films and historical dress, specifically Edwardian and Victorian styles. From a young age, I loved this history, and when I discovered that I wanted to be a fashion designer and share my love of traditional African style and culture, I learned that some styles of dress in Africa today had been cultivated and influenced by the Victorian period. Pieces like Ghana’s traditional Kaba and Slit style—which is present in Nigeria, Senegal, and other African countries—were a reflection of that time, with their own unique spin and interpretation of course.

Today, the Herero women of Namibia wear an elaborate form of bold Victorian styles influenced by their German settlers. This fascinated me so much, and I wanted to share the stories of these cultures that were being intertwined in such a beautiful way, despite such a painful introduction to one another. The patterns that they wear often have a floral base or pattern. I wanted to express this in a very old-world, Victorian style print and so I gathered vintage Victorian illustrations from open sources like art books, and other publications. The Botanica and Victoria patterns are a collage of botanical and zoological prints that typically feature detailed illustrations of animals, flora and fauna. I purposely chose illustrations that documented flowers and animals in Africa and around the world to create my version of a modern day Victorian animal print.

Have you implemented any of the collection in your own home? If so, how did you use them?

I cannot wait to get all of the prints in my home! I already know exactly where I want every pattern. Our home is very eclectic, with a modern African Art aesthetic. My husband and I love pops of color against a neutral setting, with different objects from our travels sprinkled about. We like maximalism set against minimalism if that makes sense. I’m dreaming of Victoria in my kitchen, and using both Botanica and Geometric Grassweave in my living room in the Carbon and Ebony colorways. I love the idea of indigo in the bedroom and would love to see Kente Plaid in Cerulean. Our bath would have the bright and colorful Blanche version of Botanica.