Jeanie Sinclair

Cryséde produced handmade woodblock printed textiles in Cornwall in the 1920s and 1930s. This investigation is an attempt to situate Cryséde within contemporary discourses surrounding production, retail and consumption. Alec Walker’s designs are discussed in relation to conservative modernity, the blending of tradition and modernity that is evident in the playful aesthetic of the inter-war years that appealed broadly to the middle-class and middle-brow. A discourse is constructed in the interplay between Cryséde’s position as craft, fashion and art, referring to conservative modernity in popular culture of the period. If craft creates a ‘third space’ between fine art and design, according to contemporaneous debates, with all spaces separate and opposing the commercial or mass-produced, Walker’s textiles fall into an undefined void somewhere in between. An interstitial space, traversing and transgressing the borders of definition, Cryséde simultaneously occupied contradictory positions; large-scale craft production; hand-made yet flawless; industrial knowledge into traditional production methods; commercial with a painterly exclusivity. This is discussed in relation to the emergence of the use of artists’ names in the selling of products, the changes in retail design and strategy and exhibitions as advertising. The thesis also addresses the idea of the conservative modern woman through discourses of femininity, sexuality and consumption.