Crazy for Quatrefoils

Our current observation obsession started when an ad for Van Cleef & Arpel’s latest jewelry line, Alhambra, caught our eye in the January issues of the fashion mags. A few weeks later, it was the Chinoiserie bed in an Anthropologie catalog. Hmm, this interesting clover-like symbol is popping up in homes and fashion simultaneously. What is this shape? Where is it from? Next, we noticed it in the chain of the (coincidentally named) Jayne pendant light. Three’s a trend. Our wheels were set in motion.

After perusing six books on Islamic and Gothic architecture, plus Wikipedia-ing and Googling to no avail, we called an expert. Local interior designer David Heide (Allied Member ASID and AIA Associate) told us right away that it was a quatrefoil—a four-leaf clover–like shape common in Moorish and Gothic architecture. Although the symbol has been in use for ages, it has a contemporary feel—not quite a clover, not really a flower, but too soft and curvy to be called geometric. In its current renderings, the shape has become new and fresh, yet somehow Old World and exotic. We love it.