unknown - Design for a Waistcoat - 1787 - T-Shirt

This is a late 1780s floral design study, painted in gouache and watercolour, that shows how a single botanical vocabulary could be planned for the front of a waistcoat.

Visual Elements & Composition

The sheet sits on a pale sage ground. At the left, a dense bouquet rises from broad leaf-green foliage, with a cornflower-blue bloom, clusters of magenta and pink roses, lilac pansies and a yellow star-shaped flower. Beside it runs a narrow vertical border of lilac and green stripes with a band of small pale motifs. On the right, sixteen small sprigs and single blossoms sit in loose rows, each in pink, red, yellow or blue on short green stems. The large spray dominates the left half, while the smaller units repeat evenly across the right.

Meaning & Symbolism

The contrast between the two groups shows two ways of working with the same flowers. The bouquet is a focal spray meant for a single panel, and the scattered sprigs are units meant to be repeated over the surface of the cloth. The loose washes and separate placement of motifs mark it as a planning sheet, where a designer tested scale and placement before transferring the motifs to fabric. The date written at the top centre places it in the late 1780s, when floral ornament of this kind was widely used on fashionable dress. The original is held in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum collection.

Designed for the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

A tee gives this design two natural zones: a central chest panel for the large bouquet, and open fabric around it for the scattered sprigs. The bouquet reads at a glance across the body, while the smaller blossoms reward a closer look, just as they did on the original garment. The border strip suggests a vertical accent that holds the eye at the centre of the shirt.