Designing Papillon & Peonia by Mokum

Each year, the Mokum studio travel to Italy’s Lake Como to attend the renowned Proposte tradeshow. Marvelling each time at the blooming wisteria elegantly framing the Italian villas – this became a key source of inspiration for the Papillon artwork.

The studio researched Japanese antique screens and motifs, hoping to capture their modern simplicity within the Papillon watercolour, then created the desired textile repeat system at the appropriate scale for the final print.

Next, this repeat system was sent to our European watercolourist, who previously illustrated Magnolia and La Palma and is regarded as one of the best textile watercolourists in the world. From our detailed brief she hand painted the design at an enlarged scale, ensuring the subtleties of the watercolour would be captured via digital print.

The development process of each custom colourway is completed in our Sydney studio, before Papillon and Peonia were printed in England by one of the oldest and most reputable printing mills in the world. In an ode to classic English textiles, Papillon modernises a traditional floral chintz through scale and colour.

Peonia was inspired by the woodwork ‘Peony and Bee’ (1936) by Japanese artist Suiko Fukuda.

Peonia underwent the same design process as Papillon, save for one element – our initial artwork was scaled at half the final size. When the first trial print arrived at the studio our designers felt it didn’t quite feel like Mokum – it was too tight and needed a lot more negative space to suit a more relaxed, modern interior.

The studio doubled the scale to make it more appropriate for our Australasian design aesthetic and digitally printed Peonia in England onto a pure linen, tumbled base with a delicately soft handle.

Peonia and Papillon both feature playful insects within their florals and foliage. The presence of Peonia’s whimsical bumble bee provides an opportunity to bring awareness to the important ecological issue of rapidly declining bee populations.

85% of plants exist because of pollination by bees and one third of the world’s food source is pollination dependent, however, due to factors including urbanisation, loss of natural habitat, and pesticide use the global bee population is in serious danger.

We can all do our part to help ensure the survival of the bee population, by planting bee friendly floral plants which remain pesticide free. The beehives at our company’s Auckland distribution centre are home to more than 90,000 honeybees throughout the year – and growing!

This initiative is very close to the heart of our company, hence our highlighting it in our La Primavera collection. Everyone needs to be talking to it and spreading knowledge about how critical the survival of the bee population is to our ecosystem because without bees, our future will be far less colourful.

This initiative is very close to the heart of our company, hence our highlighting it in our La Primavera collection. Everyone needs to be talking to it and spreading knowledge about how critical the survival of the bee population is to our ecosystem because without bees, our future will be far less colourful.