Written by Lauren Kime
Edited by Sereen Suleiman and Gabrielle S. Bates
Hello friends! Have you ever given any thought as to why your drapes or blankets have a specific design to them? Have you ever wondered where designers get their patterns and prints from? Well, follow along as we visit New York to take a deep dive into the world’s largest pattern library: The Design Library. Let’s see what they’re all about!
The Design Library
Originally located in Wappingers Falls, New York, The Design Library was founded in the 1970s by Susan and Herbert Meller in an 11,000-square-foot loft that was once a fabric mill. The Mellers had a passion for textiles and design elements, which led to them amassing a rather large collection of Western textile designs – most from unknown artists– that dated back from the 1750s. As a result, they began cleaning, mounting, and classifying the many fabric swatches, paintings, and antique wallpapers. The acquisition and classification of the acquired design collections from all over the world is still an ongoing process and the library continues to expand, including the opening of a London office in 2005. As of today, The Design Library claims that it “has the world’s largest and best organized collections of documentary fabrics, original paintings, wallpapers, embroideries and yarn dyes, numbering over seven million designs.”While the original intent of the library was to index the Meller’s collections, today the library focuses its business in the sales and licensing of antique, vintage, modern and contemporary textile designs, which are utilized by fashion, paper and home furnishing industries for inspiration in the creation of textiles, wall covering, graphic arts, and paper products. Designers in search of rare and unique patterns are able to lease or purchase the patterns they like and then adapt them by resizing or coloring them to suit their design needs. Some of the world’s leading design teams for major labels such as Balenciaga, Ralph Lauren, and Alexander McQueen can be found regularly perusing the collections of this internationally acclaimed library. Unfortunately for you and myself, unless we intend to be on one of these creative teams, the Design Library is completely private – “a secret repository for professionals only.”
