Forget-Me-Not

Inspired by the use of the French eighteenth century textile Toile de Jouy in the Spring/Summer 2001 fashion collections, creative director Peter Saville commissioned illustrator Julie Verhoeven to create digital interactive wallpaper. Acknowledging the contemporary anxiety about the mainstream role of pornography in fashion photography, in addition to concerns about the availability of sexual imagery on the Internet, Saville supplied the artist with reference imagery of Japanese rope suspension bondage to introduce an element of erotic danger; a counterbalance to the delicate detail of the historical textile source. From this, Verhoeven produced a sequence of virtuoso, linear vignettes that grew increasingly dark in subject and expressive in execution as the series progressed.