Fabric Descriptions

 

SunDaze Reflections

Pattern released in 2024

Fest Sundays are special. It’s always bright. Everyone wears shades. Now you can wrap your body in them day and night and really be seen. SunDaze will never be the same. Kathy Schorr interprets our unique culture through a melange of shades of every type, from aviators to cat eyes, each reflecting New Orleans’s glory arrayed against a blue sky scattered with cottony clouds and soft suns. The buttons are crystal clear bubbles of SunDaze motif nested in an oval platter.

 

French Quarter Wrap

French Quarter Wrap

Pattern released in 2023

Strut in the French Quarter everywhere in our architectonic material transformation, wrapped in its ageless grace. BayouWear gives new meaning to body building.

Inhabit the Quarter’s eternal style in the jewel tones of artist Kathy Schorr’s Quarter Wrap. This new take on historic preservation is crafted from our bespoke rayon, woven exclusively for us; designed, printed, cut and sewn in the USA, and available nowhere else. Washable, easy to care for and packs like a pro. 

Dance, parade, live, work, play and go to Fest wrapped in the warm glow of the Quarter no matter where your travels take you. Antique Bronze buttons inspired by the Quarter’s once ubiquitous sidewalk water meter covers, but more firmly attached, bring closure.

 

Music Lines

Pattern released in 2022

Music triggers art. Sound waves invisible to the naked eye are revealed by artists, oscilloscopes and trips imagined. Some people hear colors. Others see colors when music plays. Lucky them. For the rest of us, Theresa Shea makes the invisible apparent in our newest BayouWear motif, Music Lines.

Jon Batiste is descended from a distinguished music line, as are the Marsalis Brothers. New Orleans is America’s music line. Jazz Fest is the music line we all get into; a second line for the soul. Now BayouWear brings you a music line for your body. Dance in it, parade in it, go to Fest in it, live in it, work in it, play in it. Get in the line that brings joy. Wavy groovy duotone NOJF buttons secure the trip.

 

BeeBop Buzz

Pattern released in 2020

Each spring, Jazz Fest’s vibrant instruments exude nectars that prompt flying from sonic bloom to sonic bloom. Bee bopping from joy to rapture pollinates the culture, producing the Festival’s renowned honied harmonies.
Theresa Davis-Shea evinces the buzz surrounding this annual bloom in a visually fragrant fabric. Her polychromatic bouquets are arrayed atop a duotone of thatched native palmettos in midnight blues. 

 We fashion her design into the 2020 BayouWear line: HowAhYa® shirts, camisoles, pocketed sun dresses, mini and maxi skirts and Bayou Shorts. Echoing da Vinci, our gold and black BeeBop buttons place wide winged bees at the heart of a haloed universe. Buzz buzz. Bees rule.

 

Logo-a-Gogo - Marshaling Grand

Pattern released in 2019

The year was 1970. Life was groovy. Some folks in town thought it would be cool to celebrate the cradle of jazz with a little festival. Mahalia came. So did Ellis, Snooks, Pete, Al, Clifton and Fats; Duke too. But not too many others - only 350 witnessed that first Festival. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. With attendance now in the hundreds of thousands, the Festival still pulses with a New Orleans’ downbeat.

In 1970 Pop Art was dominant. Pucci reigned supreme in fashion with psychedelic swirls of color. Theresa Davis-Shea puts herself in that 70's frame of mind to riff off Jazz Fest's logo. Updating a mid-century palette with luscious 21st century colors and patterning Jazz Fest’s bell-bottomed Grand Marshal logo in an echoing beat that moves as it grooves, Davis-Shea has created the finest textile we've ever offered. We close the deal - or at least the shirt - with the most elaborate button we’ve ever crafted: A golden pulsing grand marshal bijou set in a silver metal frame and completed with clear poured resin. An exquisite jewel worthy of a 50th anniversary.

 

A La Carte 300A TriCentennial Map 

 Pattern released in 2018

New Orleans has grown a tad since Bienville’s cartographer laid out Nouvelle-Orléans’ first map in 1720 - two years after he founded the City on the dry French Quarter quadrant. Two-hundred and ninety-eight years later, BayouWear® updates that Carte de la Ville to include the Crescent of the Mississippi cradling today’s City. Our vista, from a Saint’s point of view of course, encompasses Congo Square, Audubon & City Parks and most importantly, the Fairgrounds - home to Jazz Fest.

Theresa Shea, who has worked behind the scenes for 3 decades on our posters, fabrics and buttons, steps out of the shadows to make the banner-towing crimson biplanes fly above enchanted cream clouds whose curiously amorphous shapes cast silhouettes of the instruments that are heard 24/7 on the famously musical terrain below. You’ll never get lost in this eternal city with compass buttons that point N, O, J & F - every which way but ordinary. 

 

Vintage Vinyl - Analog GrooveWear

Pattern released in 2017

The V word on everyone’s lips today is Vinyl. BayouWear owns that groove with a deep, resonant and fully analog offering for 2017 - Shimmering discs labeled with New Orleans’ icons so richly detailed that bordering wild magnolias blush in their presence. Look deeper and discover the harmonic echo of these classic 33, 45 and 78 RPM records imbedded in its periwinkle blue background. This visual analog of the sonic ideal surrounds your body in lush perfection, each ensuring you Stay Way Cool® in its own way. The buttons are mini 45’s - with adapters (of course) so they’re ready for play.

 

Jazz Fest Rag™: BayouWear Fashion with a (Heart)beat

Pattern released in 2016

March to your own beat ensnared in this funkiest of rhythmic rags- a BayouWear® drum motif that can't be beat. This syncopated visual melody of rhythmic reds an bangin' blues accompanied by groovin' greens and golds is available as a Hawaiian Shirt, Camisole, Zydeco Dance Skirt, Sundress & Chef's Apron, tailored for a perfect fit in the USA of 100% natural tropical rayon.

 

Stellar! A Streetcar’s Famed Attire™

Pattern released in 2015

Recalling a more leisurely era that still exists in New Orleans, textile artist Kathy Schorr savors the grace on steel wheels that is the New Orleans streetcar; the oldest continuously operated electric railway line in America (1893) — and certainly the most charismatic. Visualizing their olive and burgundy forms emerging from a sapphire mist dotted with aqua palms and laced with saffron glints of the original (1958) Greater New Orleans Bridge - the farthest downstream bridge over the Mississippi River — Schorr transports our gaze to futures past.

It’s the journey and the destination that matters. So arrive first class in Stellar! comfort wearing our wash ‘n wear rayon Streetcar’s Famed Attire and enjoy the ride, To facilitate boarding we fashioned nickel-tin buttons inspired by the 1919 tokens issued by the original New Orleans Railway & Light Co. Our streetcars were named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. Was the Register aware that they move? 

 

What-a-Melon™: A Juicy Delight

Pattern released in 2014

Is there anything that brings a more ready smile than the season’s first watermelon? Or that sustains joy longer, from Jazz Fest until the leaves drop? The 2014 BayouWear brand tropical clothing collection captures that sweet succulent lifestyle. Creating geometric magic with overlapping colorful abstract patterns served up on that relic of a bygone era – a newspaper. And these being New Orleans-grown, it’s only natural that their seeds spread in a fleur-de-lis array. Buttons cast from hand-sculpted seeds provide closure.

 

Splendor in the Brass™ Super-Graphic Marching Horns

Pattern released in 2013

Ah, springtime in New Orleans: the humidity rises, irises take the garden, marching bands take the streets and Jazz Fest takes the Fairgrounds. Perfection.

The Louisiana iris is our official state wildflower. It thrives in New Orleans’ sub-tropical clime and inspired the fleur-de-lis. And like our unique marching jazz bands whose air it shares, it adapts gracefully to almost any environment. An apt metaphor for how our vital native genera have been planted and blossomed into America’s singular art form — jazz.

And as the irises’ roots cultivate verdant blades heavenward, the roots of jazz raise our horns above life’s cacophony and carry us aloft. Artist Kathy Schorr captures this entwined theme, nesting nearly life-sized gleaming cornets, trombones and tubas in the embrace of lush foliage. The leaves curl in and around the brass, supporting them as their joyful noise teases forth more blooms. Transform yourself into a one-person marching band. The pearlescent keys of these instruments have been pressed into service to fasten these melodious garments: A perfect excuse for someone to push your buttons.

 

Jumble YaYa™

Pattern released in 2012

Have Big Fun on the Bayou!

As easily as New Orleans’ rich cultural heritage can be summoned, it isn’t easily summed up. Our music reveals itself to be infinitely more complex on successive listenings than its original toe-tapping seduction may have alluded to at first.

When Kathy Schorr, our resident fabric design Pooh-Bah, was handed the task of illustrating New Orleans’ multi-dimensional cultural immersion, she ran from the room. We finally located her recumbent on the banks of Bayou St. John jumbling hand-rendered mix ‘n match tiles into a magnificently imaginative, playful and colorful design that shows the interconnectedness of all things New Orleans. Like jazz, repeated engagement is rewarded with new insights; and like New Orleans, with evermore-unified relationships.

And the buttons? Our button designer began by crafting a new typeface, then carved its NOJF font over a square base in a deep duotone that echoes Schorr’s palette and motif. Jumble YaYa from the bayou. Have big fun!

 

Birds of Paradise: Flight of Fancy™

Pattern released in 2011

The State bird of Louisiana is the majestic, almost prehistoric brown pelican. Like other citizens of the State, brown pelicans are gregarious, have few natural enemies, eat shrimp, drop into a dive to grab a bite and can carry about three gallons of food and drink. 

And although they can be a drab lot, during courtship their colors become much more vibrant. Judging by the jeweled tones in this year’s BayouWear™ brand fabric, Kathy Schorr depicts them in a highly excited state indeed. 

We expect that our fellow citizens of Sportsman’s Paradise, and even folks from elsewhere, will flip when they see our birds carrying the Jazz Fest banner aloft against a sea of undulating musical notation. Hand-carved rubine red fish buttons keep the birds’ flight of fancy in hand. Forget the bush. Get our birds in your hand today.

 

NOLA Camo: Too cool to be seen in!™ 

Pattern released in 2010

camouflage n. [kam-uh-flahzh] A method of concealing personnel or equipment by making them appear to be part of the natural surroundings; disguise: an outward semblance that misrepresents the true nature of something…

Hide in plain sight in NOLA Camo, BayouWear® brand clothing’s newest deep-culture motif. Let the world see only what you want to expose. Hunt unseen for your heart’s desire, cloaked in the bayou’s mysterious beauty.* Amaze and confuse foes of cool: challenge them to find all the topical icons — even the Festival’s acronym — secreted in the shadows of 
this lush sun-dappled Louisiana landscape. Kathy Schorr, America’s premier textile artist, hand-painted tour de swamp works on multiple levels, elevating the wearer to a transplendent state. All clothing should do this — but only ours actually does. The custom camouflage buttons echo life in New Orleans, where closure and revelation are felt more than seen.

 

Pianos at Sea (Saint)

Pattern released in 2009

Pianos are the heartbeat of New Orleans music. Think Jellyroll Morton, Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Dr. John, Henry Butler, Tuts Washington, James Booker, Huey Piano Smith and the inestimable Allen Toussaint, this year’s poster honoree. Not since 1997, when the HowAhYa™ Shirt bore the percussion instruments of that year’s poster subjects, the Neville Brothers, has the BayouWear® fabric been so closely tied to the poster’s theme. Sea-Saint was the legendary Toussaint-owned recording studio that tracked the New Orleans sound of the Meters and Dr. John and lent it to Paul McCartney and Paul Simon. 

Kathy Schorr, America’s premier fabric artist, riffs on these stringed behemoths to create a multi-hued funky motif of sprightly dimension. The allegorical lapping of curlicued musical tides is echoed in the boing of the instruments’ strings. Layers of ebony and ivory are formed into radius-edged buttons that lend a subtly sophisticated coda to a beautiful arrangement.

 

Nom de Plume 

Pattern released in 2008

Kathy Schorr, New Orleans’ pre-eminent textile artist drew inspiration for this motif from the beaded, bejeweled and feathered costumes worn by New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Indians. These African-American artisans developed their indigenous art in homage to the Native Americans who gave runaway slaves shelter before emancipation. They spend all year fashioning their spectacular costumes anew for each Mardi Gras season. Schorr riffs on this craft, interspersing beaded Native American references adopted by the Indians — Big Chiefs, Ponies, Eagles and Bison — among glistening jewels that lend their extravagant feathered suits sparkle. Tucked into her vividly sensual multihued feathers are the tambourines the Indians bang and shake on their parade routes. Bronzed buttons emblazoned with Native American hieroglyphics keep the feathers from flying off your back. 

 

Fleur-de-Jazz

Pattern released in 2007

Can the fleur-de-lis be any more New Orleans? This ancient heraldic emblem of French monarchs, the Crescent City and even the Saints, blooms anew as Fleur-de-Jazz. Kathy Schorr, one of America’s foremost textile artists, takes her 10th commission from us back to its roots — literally. The abstract “flower of the lily” symbol is revived as a “flower of jazz” spray of Louisiana flora: violet irises with trombone stamen, crimson hibiscuses with trumpet pistil, pink azalea with a soprano sax style, jade banana leaves enveloping a saxophone and tangerine stargazer lilies bound around a clarinet. A heady bouquet revitalizing the classic floral Hawaiian shirts of the 30’s for New Orleans in the naughties. Bronzed royal European fleur-de-lis buttons cinch the deal.

 

Hot Licks Guitar

Pattern originally released in 2006

Guitars have been in jazz bands since Buddy Bolden’s days. Blues and folk players from Robert Johnson and Woodie Guthrie in the 30’s to Bob Dylan to Paul Simon in the 60’s brought the acoustic guitar to the fore, and artists like Dave Matthews keep it there. By mid-century, Gretsch contributed to the sound of country and rock & roll with an electric guitar that attracted Chet Atkins, Duane Eddy and George Harrison to its rich twangy hollow-body sound. But everything changed when Leo Fender introduced his solid-body, spiky-sounding electric “Telecaster” model in 1950. Kathy Schorr riffs on these milestones, wrapping each in New Orleans’ ultimate hot lick, a pepper vine. The guitars are huge — about 2/3’s actual size.

 

Second Line Parade 

Pattern originally released in 2005

Fancifully decorated "Second Line" umbrellas have been wielded by jazz-lovers accompanying musicians in their impromptu street parades for a century, more or less. Leave it to New Orleans to take something practical and turn it into a cultural icon of pure delight. And leave it to Kathy Schorr to turn this fun to high art in her vision of a world filled with prancing second liners unseen under a sea of parading umbrellas. With her customary jewel-toned palette, Schorr compresses the entire parade experience into a swath of arching color and form. There's music woven into every garment. Umbrella-top buttons secure you against over-exuberance.

 

Moonlit Magnolias

Pattern released in 2004

The creamy petals of the official flower of Louisiana, fragrant harbinger of dewy evenings, filling air thick with the silent winging of ancient dragonflies... Ah, springtime in New Orleans. There’s nothing more romantic or reminiscent of the indolent summer to come. Kathy Schorr has compacted the whole experience in her magnificent glance heavenward. Her soft-hued giant beauties form a canopy under stars accented by glistening bejeweled dragonflies. Art so rich it triggers aromatic memories. Yellow crescent moon buttons give closure to 
nature’s perfection.

 

Crawfish By You

Pattern released in 2003

Swirling ovals of succulent swimming beasties form a rhythmic abstraction reminiscent of the great fabrics of a bygone era. Wrap yourself in the bayou. Red wavy buttons echo the carapaces of these beauties. So tasty!

 

Accordions Arcadian

Pattern released in 2002

At the heart of Southwest Louisiana's Zydeco music lies the accordion - a seriously cool instrument in the hands of someone who thinks polka is just a word before dot. Our interpretation wails with depth and color, just like the real thing. Strap it on!

 

 

Cafe au Lait & Beignets (uniquely New Orleans square donuts)

Pattern released in 2001

A table top view of New Orleans' other great art form: food. Drink in shades of sienna, terra cotta, coffee, gold and cream accented with burgundy and green on a black background scattered with coffee beans. Rich and oh so tasty.

 

 

Ersters (New Orleans for oysters)

Pattern released in 2000

Succulent morsels of prowess enhancing sea bounty served on the half shell surrounded by the accoutrements, all nested in a bed of pearls. Yum yum.

 

Gator!

Pattern released in 1999

Wrestled from the bayou and featuring alligator tooth buttons. Subtle green gators swim intertwined, red mounts agape in a black swamp filled with aqua-colored lily pads. Looks like a paisley from afar, but get too close and chomp chomp.

 

Red Beans & Rice

Pattern released in 1998

The tastiest thing you can wrap around your body without making a mess. Topped off with red bean buttons, the hand painted design was the first in the series of designs created by New Orleans’ Kathy Schorr. The subtle variation of the red bean color scheme floating above a rich khaki green field littered with golden rice grains makes your mouth water as it smiles.