Spotlight on the Flora Array print
The Flora Array print is Zoozies's debut print, released at the launch of the brand, in December 2021. It was designed by textile artist Zuzana Chovanova and like every Zoozies print, it has a story to tell. Read more about the artistic process behind this unique fabric print.
It all started in the summer of 2020, just before the first New Zealand lockdown. Zuzana had just spent Christmas in Australia, visiting her dad in New South Wales, where she had been captivated by all the beautiful Australian native flora. The shapes, colours, and the overall exotic appearance of the vegetation immediately became a big source of inspiration. After returning back to New Zealand, she began sketching in her notepad. The native plants, such as banksia, protea, waratah, kangaroo paw, Sturt's desert pea and a few others were individually drawn, using charcoal pencils.
However, the sketches were not immediately translated into a pattern, but instead they would sit in a notepad for a while. It was not until March 2021 that they were visited again, some were re-sketched and then the digitising in the computer followed. Some creative ideas need to rest before they are ready to be explored again and brought to the end result successfully - and that was exactly the case of the Flora Array print.
All charcoal drawings were scanned in, adjusted and digitally manipulated in Photoshop and then arranged into a repeat network. Different textures were trialled for the background of the print, including watercolour, charcoal texture and plain colour. The final decision was to use the plain black background. Since scale is a very important factor in textile design, the print was tried on a few different scales before committing to large-scale printing on fabric.
The final pattern repeat tile was sent to the fabric printers in Auckland and an A3 sample swatch was screen-printed to see the initial result - final check of the scale, pattern definition and colour bleeding. From there, a couple of adjustments were made and the fabric length was printed. The chosen base fabric was 55% linen 45% cotton fabric.
The colour palette was always going to be black and white, creating a timeless and easy-to-combine print. Zuzana also wanted the actual motifs to stand out more than its colours as the pattern was a celebration of Australia's native plants and their spikey, irregular and almost prehistoric-looking forms and shapes.
The Flora Array print was introduced in December 2021 in two garment styles - Flora Array Dress and Flora Array Pants, as well as one silk scarf style - Flora Array Silk Scarf. Both garment styles were fabricated from the 55% linen 45% cotton fabric, that was screen-printed in Auckland, New Zealand, using the Flora Array pattern tile. The silk scarf was digitally printed onto a silk fabric, using the same Flora Array pattern tile but in a slightly smaller scale, to suit its size and purpose.
