An Obsession for Decoration
I was browsing Country Living looking for new trends when I came across a design word they suggested I should learn. The word was passementerie, and I sorta do know it (I just can’t spell it yet).
It seems I’ve been obsessing for a while now over passementerie often found together with the word trim. It is a French word in origin and while it was used to describe gold braid on clothing, it now describes trims of all sorts. I love the new word because I think it fits what it is (ok, old word, Mr. Rogers once told us to learn something old every day). Passementerie looks fancy. Spoken aloud it sounds, um, embellished.
Sightseeing in Little Italy in Cleveland, Ohio before my niece’s wedding, my sister-in-law and I came across this shop called Bolt & Spool featuring Liberty of London fabrics and offering stitch parties (for your clever friends). It spoke to us so we ducked inside. Happily, we were greeted with so many ideas, tempting fabrics, and rolls of trim and ribbon. I was moved to snap a photo of the lovely rows and columns of spools inspiring the boutique’s name (see above).
So yeah, I have a thing for trims. I swoon over them and have sometimes even collected them without knowing how I plan to use them. This has led to having to find ways to store them, but also see them so I can incorporate them into work. Then there are ones you just can’t bring yourself to use so instead, you display them and visit them occasionally. It’s very complicated, but I’m not complaining.
Passementerie is delicious icing. Trims are usually added at the end of a project and for me that requires patience. As I carefully prepare or construct the project’s base, trimming is the process I anticipate. It’s almost like skipping ahead to the end of a novel and reading it first. I want to drop what I’m doing and drape trim on the unfinished piece. Rummaging my stash to find the right trim for the right item is so much fun. It is spreading the icing on the cake.
If you enjoy embellishing then you probably understand. Failing to put things away after you’ve iced is a problem too. Perhaps you have storage issues like me. Maybe we should consider some new (old) ways of how to store and enjoy these finds.
In the meantime, I think I’ll go spread some lovely passementerie.
