Its funny how certain patterns {literal patterns as seen in china & cloth for example} we grow to love & appreciate as we mature. I can remember seeing certain designs and only seeing something old, boring & certainly of no interest to me. Fast forward a ‘few years’ and all of the sudden, like a veil being lifted off my eyes, these classic beauties are now something highly covet worthy and in the right hands a weapon of design inspiration. Such a pattern for me was Toile. I remember seeings yards of toile that my mom had and deciding pretty much immediately that it was clearly something that was passed down, in a no one wanted it kind of way, a left over from someone’s grandmother if you will. Cut to planning our own wedding and damn if all of the sudden I am IN.LOVE. with tolie working it into my designscape! It just goes to show, the classics are classics for a reason!
Tolie itself is a French term for a pattern, printed on a white or off-white background, with a repeated design depicting a fairly complex scene. Often the scene would be something pastoral in nature, such as a couple having a picnic by a lake or floral arrangements. The beauty to tolie is its timeless elegance & sophistication. Not to long ago I saw a gorgeous styled shoot with tolie as the much deserved inspiration on Magnolia Rouge! From the tablecloth, to plates, to vases & elements of decor, everything got the tolie treatment! It was however, for me, the cake made by Uta Hornemann that was the shining star!
*Photograph by Carmen & Ingo Photography
So lets get to heart of why is this cake is such perfection? For me the very first thing, and perhaps the most important are the colors. The white is such a delicious and lovely pure white, exactly as you would see in a fresh brand new piece of china. All too often the whites in cakes, due to their ingredients, drift into more of a yellowy, off white like nature and it is the pureness of this white that truly makes it so divine! Next is the blue, and I really give Uta Hornemann so much credit for really nailing this blue! Its the perfect balance of indigo blue that is true to itself, not bleeding purple, not showing too primary either, juuuuust right. This very blue is pretty damn spot on for the blue one would see in tolie fabric or event willow patterned plates for that matter, it is perfection!
The second, most important element to the cake, is its structured shape. The smooth perfect lines of each rectangular layer offer a very stoic deliberate bases from which the tolie is allowed to shine. By building such a strong basic base to the cake, the tolied pattern truly pops within its window like frames! The tolie pattern itself is a wonderfully chic & whimsical design playing with a lovely avian theme. The pattern has just enough going on while offering plenty of open space which serves to make each element of the tolie design stand out to perfection! The use of a window like display for the pattern allows us to truly hone in our attention, zeroing in specifically into the tolie. Were the entire cake covered in tolie from top to bottom, the effect would not nearly be the same.
Finishing the cake is a playful mimic of the bird pattern, a sweet petite dove lovingly cooing at his 2D friends. So what is it about the cake that is so alluring? Between the use of the tolie & the design of the cake as a whole, there is a rich posh tone that radiates from the cake. It is quite easy to see this cake in a wonderfully glamorous even something royal in nature like wedding! The lines of the cake give a modern feel while the tolie windows offer a playful tone, all of which allow this cake to successfully transcend chic based themes, making such a beautiful design accessible! This timeless classic beauty will allows be in and for good reason!