Appliqué (pronounced ap-li-key)
(1) Ornamentation, as a decorative cut-out design, sewn
on, glued or otherwise applied to a piece of material.
(2) The practice of decorating in this way
(3) A work so formed or an object so decorated.
(4) A decorative feature, as a sconce, applied to a
surface.
(5) To apply, as appliqué to.
(6) In medicine, of a red blood cell infected by the
malarial parasite Plasmodium falciparum, assuming a form in which the early
trophozoite of Plasmodium falciparum parasitises the marginal portion of the
red blood cell, appearing as if the parasite has been “applied”.
1841: From the from French appliqué (work applied or laid
on to another material), noun use of the past participle of appliquer (to apply), from the twelfth
century Old French apliquier), from
the Latin applicare (attach to, join,
connect) and the source of “apply” in Modern English. The alternative spelling is applique and in
French, the feminine was appliquée, the
masculine plural appliqués & the
feminine plural appliquées. As a verb, appliqué refers to a method of
construction but as a noun, depending on the item, the synonyms can include finery,
ornament, plaque, ribbon, trinket, wreath, brocade, decoration, lace,
needlepoint, quilting, tapestry, mesh, arabesque, bauble, braid, curlicue,
dingbat & embellishment. Appliqué is
a noun, verb & adjective appliquéd is a verb & adjective and appliquéing
is a verb; the noun plural is appliqués.
The woodie wagon and the descent to DI-NOC appliqué
Horse drawn carriages of course began with timber
construction, metal components added as techniques in metallurgy improved. The methods of construction were carried
over to the horseless carriages, most early automobiles made with a steel
chassis and bodywork which could be of metal, wood or even leather, located by
a wooden frame. That endured for decades
before being abandoned by almost all manufacturers by the 1970s, Morgan remaining
one of the few traditionalists, their craftspeople (some of whom are now women)
still fashioning some of the internal structure (attached to the aluminum
chassis) from lovingly shaped and sanded English ash.
Early woodies: 1934 Ford V8 Model 40 woodie wagon (left), 1941 Packard One-Ten woodie wagon (centre) and 1949 Mercury 9CM woodie wagon (right).
During the inter-war years, the timberwork again became prominent
in the early shooting brakes and station wagons. Because such vehicles were limited production
variations of the standard models, it wasn’t financially viable to build the tooling
required to press the body panels so a partially complete cars were used
(often by an external specialist), onto which was added the required coachwork,
all fashioned in timber in the same manner used for centuries. In the US, the
cars were known as woodie wagons (often spelled woody in the UK where the same
techniques were used) and the more expensive were truly fine examples of the
cabinet-maker’s art, the timbers sometimes carefully chosen to match the interior appointments. So much
did the highly-polished creations resemble the fine oak, walnut and mahogany
furniture with which the rich were accustomed to being around that they began
to request sedans and convertibles built in the same way and the industry
responded with top-of-the-range models with timber doors and panels replacing
the pressed metal used on the cheaper versions.
1947 Nash Ambassador sedan (left), 1947 1948 Chrysler Town & Country convertible (centre) and 1947 Cadillac Series 75 Limousine 1947 (right). Such was the appeal of the intricate woodwork that in the 1940s, manufacturers offered it on very expensive models although the timber offered no functional advantage over metal construction.
General Motors (GM) in 1935 actually introduced an
all-steel model with station wagon coachwork but it was on a light-truck
chassis (shades of the twenty-first century) and intended more for commercial
operators; nobody then followed GM’s example. The woodies were of course less practical and
in some climates prone to deterioration, especially when the recommended care
and maintenance schedules were ignored but demand continued and some returned
to the catalogue in 1946 when production of civilian automobiles resumed from the
war-time hiatus but these lines were almost all just the 1942 cars with minor
updates. By 1949, the manufacturers had
introduced their genuinely new models, the construction of which was influenced
by the lessons learned during the war years when factories had been adapted
to make a wide range of military equipment.
Although woodies remained briefly available in some of the new bodies, one
innovation which emerged from this time was the new “all steel” station wagon
which was not only cheaper to produce than the labor-intensive woodie but
something ideally suited to the emerging suburban populations and it would for
decades be one of the industry’s best-sellers, decline not setting in until the
mid-1970s.
US manufacturers applied the appliqué for decades and until 1953, Ford even used real timber for the DI-NOC's perimeter molding. Some were worse than others.
However, although by the mid-1950s, the all-steel bodies
had in the US replaced all but the handful of coach-built wagons made for those
who valued exclusivity more than practicality, there was still a nostalgic
longing for the look of timber. It was
too expensive to use the real stuff but what was adapted was DI-NOC, (Diurno Nocturna, from the Spanish, literally “daytime-nighttime” and
translated for marketing purposes as “beautiful day & night”), an embossed vinyl or polyolefin material with a pressure-sensitive adhesive backing produced
since the 1930s and perfected by Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (3M). Described as an “architectural finish”, it
was used mostly for interior design purposes in hundreds of patterns and was
able to be laid over a variety of substrates such as drywall, metal, and
laminate. Remarkably effective at
emulating (at a distance) more expensive materials such as wood, leather,
marble, metal or granite, what the manufacturers did was not re-create the appearance
of the original woodies but instead unleash the designers on the large side-surfaces
of the modern Amerian car, the results mostly variations of a theme and
polarizing, the DI-NOC appliqués something one either loved or hated.
1963 Ford Consul Cortina 1500 (Mk1 “Woody” estate) (left) and 1963 Ford Falcon Squire (left). Neither sold well or were offered for long, the Falcon’s DI-NOC particularly ill-suited to the Australian summer.
It was the Americans who fell in love with the look and in
the 1960s and 1970s, a wide range of cars, large and small and all of them
station wagons were available off the showroom floor, complete with a faux-woodgrain
appliqué glued to the flanks and sometimes the tailgate. 3M claimed it looked exactly like the real
thing and at night, that was actually true although close-up, daylight exposed
reality like the ugly lights in a night-club, something especially noted of a DI-NOCed
machine which has spent a couple of summers baking in the Arizona sun. Still, nobody actually claimed it was real
wood and unlike something subtle like a badge, several square feet of DI NOC
plastered on the sides was a way of telling everyone you bought the most
expensive model. Detroit had established
colonies in England, Australia and Germany and there they tried to export the DI-NOC idea. The Prussians weren’t tempted
but Ford did briefly offer an embellished Cortina in the UK and the Falcon Squire
in Australia.
Real, sort of real and surreal. 1964 Morris Minor Traveller (left), 1961 advertisement for the Morris Mini Traveller (centre) and the custom (originally a 1960 3.4 FHC (fixed head coupé)) Jaguar XK150 shooting brake (Foxbat).
In the UK, one traditional woodie did enjoy a long life, the Morris Traveller, introduced in 1953 as an addition to the Minor range
(1948-1972 (1975 in overseas markets)) remaining in production until 1971, the body aft of the doors formed
with structural timber members which supported infill panels in painted aluminum. It was the last true woodie in production and
is now a thing in the lower reaches of the collector market, one donating its rear
compartment to someone who wanted the Jaguar XK150 shooting brake the factory
never made. Dubbed the Foxbat, it has
been restored as a charming monument to English eccentricity. However, while the Minor Traveller was real, the
subsequent Mini Traveller (1961–1969) was a curious hybrid: Structurally it was
exactly the same car as the Mini station wagon, the external members real wood
but wholly decorative affectations which were attached directly to the steel body, the "infill" panels an illusion. The original Mini enjoyed a forty-year life between 1959-2000 but when in 2001 BMW introduced their retro-flavored take on
the idea, although they resurrected a few motifs, they didn’t bring back a
woodie, fake, faux or real.
Lindsay Lohan in lace appliqué trousers and black swimsuit, Mykonos, Greece, August 2016.
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