Dressing like a picnic blanket is frivolous but fun

If you’ve ever lovingly gazed at your picnic blanket or tablecloth and thought it would make the perfect fabric for a frock, then congratulations. Because in certain circles, it’s a hot summer trend.

“It’s a total frivolous novelty, and nothing more than that,” acknowledges JJ Martin, the founder of print-based label La DoubleJ, who embraces the look when she hosts parties at her Milan home. But she also considers it “an all-around heart-opening, joy-boosting exercise and it can be a real fun conversation starter with all of your guests.”

La DoubleJ’s Borboni print, with its yellow lemons on vines, features on tablecloths (from £260, ladoublej.com) as well as in the background of its Sundowner dress (£820, ladoublej.com), while its exuberant blue anemone pattern pops up on a jumpsuit and again on a tablecloth.

Perhaps dressing to match your table is the logical next step to the mania for a crafted #tablescape (which has nearly 2mn posts so far on Instagram). Loro Piana has a burnt orange floral silk dress (£3,520, uk.loropiana.com) with a sibling linen table runner (£380, uk.loropiana.com), Lisa Corti offers dresses and tablecloths (£238 and £167, lisacorti.com) in coordinating geometric prints, while designer Anna Mason has a collection of placemats and napkins with the luxury tableware brand Maison Margaux (£80 on sale, annamasonlondon.co.uk).

Theatrical? Silly, even? Yes, but as we finally throw off our winter woolly shackles and start planning summer picnics, isn’t that what we need right now? “It’s just fun, and that’s what entertaining should be,” says Ella Ringner, founder of British brand Yolke, which has a range of tablecloths, napkins and dresses made from the same fabrics, including a linen green hydrangea print (napkins £125, tablecloth £225 and dress £285, yolke.co.uk).

New York-based Nell Diamond of Hill House Home has just launched a collaboration based on a watercolour painting of a hydrangea by artist Leïla Dubus, with the tableware influencer Alice Naylor-Leyland (aka the 205k-strong @mrsalice on Instagram). Diamond says that matching prints makes an event “feel like a marked milestone, an occasion to capture and celebrate. It’s all the more special — and photographable.” Designer Olivia Morris has taken this one step further, producing a range of summer kaftans from vintage tablecloths (£250, oliviamorrisathome.com).

The coming together of tablecloths and dresses is almost an inevitability as the worlds of interiors and fashion continue to merge. “We’re all getting so adept at scheming for our interiors, mixing fabrics, pattern and colours together that I think getting dressed is just an extension of the same idea,” says Gabby Deeming, founder of the hand block-printed brand Daydress and a former creative director at House and Garden. She has recently launched an interiors collaboration with Haines (£85 for a cushion hainescollection.co.uk), the designer textile surplus collective.

The secret of pulling off full pattern, says Deeming is to “wear with lots of confidence and accessorise well.” For some, like stylist Sarah Corbett-Winder, that means fully leaning in with pretty Carel Mary Janes and a kitsch straw handbag.

Not everyone is on board with more florals than the Chelsea Flower Show and the whiff of the chintzy cottagecore look, however, which is where gingham comes in. Yes it can look 1950s Shirley Temple too, but it can also cater to those who favour geometric designs and minimalism, and has popped up at edgier brands such as Alaïa and Comme des Garçons this season.

It’s also an antidote to the florals that have dominated our dresses for several summers. Some, including John Lewis’s fashion director, Queralt Ferrer, are keen to “move on” from ubiquitous flowery dresses. Designer Faye Toogood tends to agree: “I do think that florals can be challenging.”

Instead Toogood is a fan of stripes, checks and particularly the nostalgia of gingham, with its hints of long summer lunches, whether on a British beach with a pasty, or under a grapevine in Provence. “There’s something about gingham that expresses warmth and comfort and security,” she says. “It’s a fabric that really cheers you up.”

Toogood’s latest collection includes oversized dresses, trousers and shirts made from an exploded gingham check; one of the highlights of the collection is a wide-strapped dress (£785, t-o-o-g-o-o-d.com) which looks floaty enough for a summer picnic, or in a casual office under a loose blazer.

Toogood’s gingham doesn’t come with matching table linen, but it is an ode to a picnic blanket — an item that defines her family summer holidays in Cornwall. “I’m known as ‘Mrs Picnic’; when I do picnics, I don’t just pick up something from the shop and sit on a towel, I bring tablecloths, plates, cutlery and we lug everything down to the beach,” Toogood laughs. “It’s a whole experience.”

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