At Palava, we’ve always had a soft spot for nature’s wonders—whether it’s the cheeky squirrel burying its acorns or the majestic tiger gracing the edges of your cardigan.
So, when the opportunity arose to collaborate with the Natural History Museum, we dived in head first! They graciously opened their archives, allowing us to delve into centuries-old scientific illustrations from rare books.
The result? A capsule collection of dresses that marry vintage artistry with contemporary flair.
The Art of Scientific Illustration
The 18th and 19th centuries were a golden era for scientific illustration. Artists and naturalists collaborated to document species with meticulous detail, blending art and science seamlessly. These illustrations were not just about aesthetics; they were crucial for the study and classification of species.
Obviously, each artist or scientist has their own style and expertise. Today, the Museum's collection contains more than 1.5 million books, manuscripts and artworks, making up the world's finest collection of natural history literature.
Some artists made it their mission to make their illustrations or watercolours as precise as possible. Ferdinand (1760-1826) and Franz Bauer (1758-1840) were among the best natural history artists of all time. Their obsession with colour is evident in their work. They even designed a colour chart that would enable them to accurately recreate sketches of their discoveries. Like modern-day Pantone colour charts!
Making Knowledge Accessible
It was all great to have all these magnificent artworks, informing the scientific community and enlarging our general knowledge of the natural world, but how did they come to be known by the general public?
That’s where some of the authors whose books we used as inspiration came in.
Claude Augé and the publication house of Larousse were the main inspiration for our first print: Ocean Jelly Fish. Dictionaries and encyclopedias existed in the 19th century, but they were often not widely available and unaffordable to the average person. Claude Augé, a French lexicographer and publisher, had an idea though. He wanted to make this scientific knowledge more accessible and interesting to learn about. Using his experience in creating educational books, he set about creating the Nouveau Larousse Illustré, an illustrated 7,600-page encyclopedia based on a previous work by Pierre Larousse. Covering a wide variety of subjects from literature, history, science, art and geography, it was a comprehensive source of knowledge. It was one of the first encyclopedias to include such beautifully detailed illustrations, maps and diagrams - and in colour - and ultimately, those are what determined the collection’s success. The 7 volumes quickly became popular and 30 years after their initial release in 1897, Larousse publications had sold 250,000 copies.
The sheer amount as well as the beauty of the illustrations definitely made Claude Augé’s book stand out as a reference for everyday people. In fact, extensive illustrations are now a hallmark of any Larousse Illustré dictionary or encyclopedia!
On the other side of the world, in Australia, William Saville-Kent, a marine biologist, became instrumental in educating the world on coral reefs. He published one of the first books depicting them in great detail, combining black and white pictures and lithographs of them in their full colourful splendour for the world to see.
Early on in his career, Saville-Kent was appointed curator of corals in the Natural History department of the British Museum (which would later become the Natural History Museum). His pioneering encyclopedia The Great Barrier Reef of Australia, included several amazing lithographs created by a Mr Riddle and Mr Couchman, based on Saville-Kent’s original watercolour sketches, parts of which you will find in our Palava x The Natural History Museum capsule collection.
The Prints: A Deep Dive
The Natural History Museum gave us access to their extensive archive, full of incredible illustrations and artworks. But where do you even start when you have half a million illustrations at your fingertips?
Our summer collection is about the North Yorkshire coast, celebrating the incredible landscapes and wildlife you find where the land meets the sea. So we thought we would explore that first. Immediately, we were immersed in an underwater world full of life and colour. Within hours, Bryony had combined different prints and drawings to mock up on dresses. Some were quite crazy (let’s not mention the one that was just a bunch of fish eyes). But inspiration struck with the three prints we ended up selecting.
Our exclusive prints take a lot of inspiration from Claude Augé’s Nouveau Larousse Illustré. You can even see some of the little numbers next to the illustrated specimens and their corresponding reference in the dress border. The bright illustrations from William Saville Kent’s The Great Barrier Reef of Australia also caught our eye. The vibrancy of these drawings made us feel we couldn’t just leave them in the archive: we needed to see them on a dress, or a shirt, or both!
Using her experience in print creation, Bryony layered fish over each other over coral reefs, added jellyfish and seaweed or included Palava prints from the archive to create our 3 final prints.
Ocean Jellyfish
There’s something mesmerizing about jellyfish—their ethereal glow, their graceful drift. The fact that they can be colourful or completely transparent. Where does their brain go if we can see all the way through them? This print captures their curious shapes and sizes, alongside many other unusual specimens and funny-looking seaweed. It’s an amalgamation of sea creatures living alongside each other in the hypothetical Palava underwater world. It’s like wearing a piece of the ocean, without getting wet.
Coastal Migration
This print is a tapestry of marine adventures, showcasing migratory fish in all their scaly glory alongside bright and bold coral reefs on the seabed. The print’s background comes from a Palava print found deep in our own archives. It’s livened up with the incredibly colourful corals and anemones gracing the border of the dress. Giant prawns, curious blue-finned fish and bright clownfish swim in and out of the migratory shoals of fish.
Coral Reef
Coming soon!
Claude Augé's Larousse Illustré, released in 1897.
Original Illustrated Plate from the Fish Section of Claude Augé's Nouveau Larousse Illustré
William Saville-Kent's methods for photographing submerged corals (from publicdomainreview.org)
Great Barrier Reef coral illustrations from Saville-Kent's encyclopedia The Great Barrier Reef of Australia (from publicdomainreview.org)
Great Barrier Reef fish illustrations from Saville-Kent's encyclopedia The Great Barrier Reef of Australia (from publicdomainreview.org)
