Today in Textiles: Monoprix

Mood for the article: Booker T. & the M.G.'s: Soul Dressing

It is with a tender heart that I confess an addiction to you, my rapt audience. I am enough of a woman to admit it: I am obsessed with prints. Chintz to faux plaid, les Indiennes to polka-dots, I’m powerless. A sliver of floral cotton peeking from a shirt-cuff makes my teeth tingle, a checker glaze printed on a coffee cup makes me consider taking up the morning brew (just to touch that thing daily). I am utterly compelled by them, enchanted, glamoured. My early childhood is full of prints as landmarks of moments and people, acting like tethering pins to the “chronology” of my life. Swiss dot in a dressmakers shop in India at three, lavender blue buds on a flannel night-gown from my Grandmother on my eighth Christmas. I have moved two times with a hunk of pale puce 1930’s upholstery fabric that an elderly artist gave me, and three times with a shredded bandana of dusk colored Madras cotton from my first best friend. Even today, instead of packing reasonable shoes for this trip, I chose to wear sandals in the rain, because: scarves over sneakers.

They are semiotically and sensorally rich, imprinting themselves as luscious maps to a particularity: looking at them reminds me of a moment I wore them, of the hands who gifted them to me, of a place in the world that I laid eyes on and cash out for them. I have no desire to curb this craving, and will continue to feed this addiction. Prints are one library where ALL items “spark joy”, and can be re-read over a lifetime.

Now, we come a French siren for the seduction to my weakness: Monoprix. Monoprix is a titan of retail in France, founded as a moderate housing goods store in October of 1932, Rouen. They have since become corporate monoliths, representing a host of sub affiliates as the parent organization, such as the Casino group. They tend to be present in larger cities (Paris, Moulins, Lourdes, Perigeaux on this trip so far), leaving Carrefour Express or Viva for smaller hamlets. Not only do they provide their own sumptuous brand of pre-made deli items and specialty pantry, but some of the markets cater to other domestic needs such as housewares and--you guessed it--clothing.

My first experience with Monoprix was when I was preparing for pilgrimage in Spain, and had a few days in Paris during the summer of ‘14. Stumbling into one of their petite stores near Montmartre, I found their reusable shopping bags to be charming--printed with the seasonal motif developed by their design teams a few times each year. This meant that every few months the cheap, “environmentally responsible” (and sturdy) grocery bags were replaced with the new season, and its fresh, beguiling prints. I was sold, and have bought grocery bags there each time I travel, stuffing them in pockets like prizes of their own right. I recall buying a bottle of water once, just to pretend that I needed the tote: going into the store raw and demanding an empty bag just seemed too beastial.

However, this has become an affliction beyond the sensible purchases that I could substantiate through the romance of “sustainability”. This need for prints has developed a fever, and has lead to me into the dangerous territory of homegoods: because, really, I can always find a way to heed the urgency of the domestic. It’s part of my politic, after all. Today, I spent the morning going to the Monoprix in Lourdes to buy bread. By morning, I mean I spent an hour expertly photographing prints in their clothing store, hoarding their splendor in digital form before going to buy a baguette. Like a secret shopper or reconnaissance agent, I wandered through the store stealing pictures of hemlines, collars, a fringed selvage. There were a few times, particularly in the children's section, where I let out audible peeps/yelps/sighs about the genius of a print. I delighted at how sophisticated the baby dresses were, at how coquettish the pro-fresh trousers were. All so beautifully measured, somehow conveying just what I imagined could only be possessed by a living thing--- Poise.

Defined as “1. A state of balance or equilibrium. 2. A dignified, self-confident manner or bearing; composure; self possession”,

They are something other than Target. They are something other than Anthropologie. They are a reasonably affordable love child of them both, yet their own. And within their not-this, not-that, I find myself enacting the same thing with my own life. The textiles are not of the world I already know, but pull from all things familiar. Wandering through the store, studying the “things”, I find imagination takes over. I am inspired to envision alternate lives of mine, struck by these pajamas, ironing board covers, nail files.

A boxy, terry cloth sweater with art-deco pinecones inspires the sensation of a French November, even when I’ve never been here in winter. Striped, rayon beach pajamas the color of milk-glass remind me of lingering terrace conversation on the coast, ones I’ve never had as a solo traveler who is language locked. Tiny hangers with citrusy dresses in the toddler section peirce hard: I find myself falling into imaginings of slipping my non-existent child’s buttery arms through the bias tape rimmed sleeves. In this patterned feast, I realize that prints are not only maps of the known, but also maps into the unknown. It isn’t just their power to imprint (heeyuk) onto experience that makes me crave textiles, but also their capacity to inspire experiences I may never have.

For some, the relationship to print can be “self-obliteration”. Yayoi Kusama shares her experience with pattern/print as something that dissolves the self, causes disjuncture and sublimation through their overwhelming power. The hallucinatory relationship with what is unknown or “isn’t there” in the print can have torturous results for her, particularly in consideration to her mental health narrative. She feels consumed by what prints in the “experience” world can do, triggering imagined worlds within her mind that can be excruciating. Yet, this nightmare inspires her own work with pattern. And her own work with pattern is healing.

Her case reminds me of the ouraboural quality that material culture can “do” to us, in the ways that we intersubjectively live our lives with the “stuff” around us. Polka dots or diaper cloths, we’re inextricably related to these “fabric” of our lives.

https://open.spotify.com/track/3Q031ckN7rwljKZhEQvvcR?si=hX2tAkCXTN2CA_T-yI70FQ