The Folly Cove Designers were a mid-century all-female collective based in Massachusetts, US. The illustrator and children’s book author Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios provided training to her neighbours in Folly Cove, and the women met monthly to exchange ideas for their designs, which they primarily block-printed on fabric. Now, writer Elena M Sarni has spent 13 years writing a book about them. ‘I never tire of the art, and their business was very ahead of its time,’” she says. ‘They advocated for designer credit and trademarked their logo in the late 1940s.’ The women’s designs came from their surroundings. ‘I look at each design as a personal narrative, told in the language of pattern,’ Sarni says. ‘It’s inspiring that people can find beauty in everyday things.’
