Felix the Cat, 1924

With the ball last night and the Crane Estate event last weekend, I am certainly learning to love the '20s. Today, while browsing the Victoria and Albert Museum online collections, I happened upon this printed dress fabric, featuring "Felix the Cat, children, and a dog."

Felix the Cat printed dress fabric, 1924. via the V&A

Printed cottons for summer dresses aren't new--in fact, I'll be posting later this week about my new printed 1860s summer dress--but there's something about this cartoon character printed that I love for its wackyness. (I also want to make dresses out of super hero cotton and science fabric, so this is hilariously close.)

According to the V&A:

"This dress fabric is demonstrative of the impact made by Felix the Cat on the popular culture of the 20th century...Felix debuted in 1919 as the silent star of short animated films. He was created by Otto Messner and the cartoons were produced by the studio of Pat Sullivan. His distinct personality, comic pantomiming and the surreal, ‘magical’ quality of the animation gave him international stardom."

I haven't come across any crazy printed dresses in my brief search yet, but I'm totally entertained by this print. If I ever see Felix the Cat fabric, now I know what to do with it!


Also, if you're like me, you'd never actually seen any 20s Felix the Cat cartoons...so I looked some up! Here's one that involves a book called "How to Be a Vamp":




Felix is so mean! Poor owner.