Following a record-breaking month of rainfall we’re all hoping for a blooming beautiful May. Traditionally, it is a very floral month and this year looks to be no different. The month begins with Wildflower Week; a recognition of the colourful blooms that bring our natural landscape to life and a time when we encourage everyone to consider planting wildflowers to create new natural habitats. Of course, we can’t mention wildflowers without fondly thinking of the joyous Liberty Fabric, Wild Flowers, created by Su Blackwell as a recollection of early childhood journeys through British landscape in discovery of native flora, and one which we’ve proudly used across Coco & Wolf products over the years.

The month continues on a floral theme as we head into the Coronation weekend. The once in a lifetime celebration will undoubtedly include displays of beautiful, seasonal flowers due to King Charles’ passion for organic and sustainable gardening and the month will come to a triumphant end with RHS Chelsea Flower Show, one of the most hotly anticipated events in the botanical calendar, teeming with floral inspiration. With all these florals on our mind today we thought we would delve into a few of our favourite Liberty florals. Some of the very first Liberty prints were reproductions of sprig florals and paisley designs from India and today, despite being joined by geometrics and conversational designs, Liberty’s iconic and evergreen florals continue to be beloved around the globe.

Coco & Wolf’s Favourite Florals

Linen Garden

Linen Garden was part of Liberty’s AW21 ‘The New Collectibles’ collection and has become one of Coco & Wolf’s most favourite prints. Painted along a length of natural linen, this floral design includes poppies, calendula, flax, wallflowers, columbine, mallow, harebells, campion, pimpernel, wall lettuce and clover. Layers of gouache, applied thickly created texture and further interest. 

Betsy, Betsy Boo & Betsy Ann

Perhaps Liberty’s most epochal floral, Betsy is a small, stylised floral originally created in 1933 by the artist known only as D.S., who was also behind many of our other favourite classic Liberty prints. As one of Liberty’s most loved prints, Betsy has also inspired many other prints and iterations. Betsy Ann is a small-scale version of Betsy, first designed for Liberty Fabrics in the 1930s. Its dainty nature makes it a perfect match for larger scale prints and is triumphant across a variety of products from Bedding to Table Linen.

Betsy Boo is a fresh and new take on Betsy, recently introduced by the Liberty design team. This versatile design has been reimagined as a simple monochrome with a loosely drawn fine outline creating softer silhouettes and is already proving one of the most popular prints for 2023.

Katie And Millie

Katie and Millie is a floral print inspired by a design in the Liberty archive, dating from the 1920s. It is one of the very smallest in scale in the entire Liberty Fabrics collection and one of the most detailed designs to still be traditionally rotary printed. Coco & Wolf customers love this diminutively dainty print and as a result the Rust, Magenta and Pink iterations all feature in our current collection.

Meadow Song

Meadow Song is a beautifully rendered botanical, redrawn from a hand-painted artwork discovered in the Liberty archive. Paying homage to Liberty’s long-standing love affair of poppies and daisies, it exhibits a nostalgic floral mood. The large scale works beautifully alongside dainty designs and create a victorious print pairing.

Capel

First printed by Liberty Fabrics in 1978, Capel was inspired by a vintage style of Liberty floral dating from the 1930s. A small, loosely-drawn design with an all-over repeat, it has been part of Liberty’s Classics collection since 1993 and featured in Coco & Wolf’s collections since our brand’s inception. 

Michelle

Michelle is another 1930s floral developed from a design in the Liberty archive dating from 1933. Like Betsy, it was created by D.S. and has a subversive sweetness adored globally. Michelle is currently celebrated in many colour ways by Coco & Wolf, with Lilac, Seagreen, Sand, Pistachio and new favourite, Mustard all being used for our bedding, cushions and table linen and is the perfect print companion for Betsy.

Sharing our favourite fabrics is always tricky as, being honest, we could share them all! We've never met a Liberty fabric we don't love, but May naturally lends itself to celebrating our favourite florals. We'd love for you to share your favourite Liberty florals with us - tell us in the comments below.