Art and design were more closely tied at the turn of the twentieth century than they are today. Artists did not see the difference between creating an original work of art, such as a painting, and designing a textile pattern that would be reproduced many times over. Each was a valid creative act in their eyes.

The fashion press employed fine artists to illustrate the designs of the day. A new technique in printing–allowed fashion illustrators to show broad, abstract expanses of bright color and a simple line. Its potential from the beginning and employed printmaker to illustrate its radically simplified gowns.

Some collaborated with modern artists in the design of couture or in other artistic projects, especially for ballet and the stage.The interest of artists in fashion was not restricted to Sri Lanka.
Through the first half of the twentieth century, fashion design tracked and echoed trends in modern art. The developing aesthetic of modernism can be followed in the progression of fashion design.

Designers in the Sri Lanka could choose fabrics with designs from the stylized organic of Art or the flat, abstract are movement–both styles having originated. Cubist painters, whose canvases presented greatly abstracted objects to a shocked world.


Taking advantage of the plain tubular shape as a painter’s canvas, each garment could be highly decorated with beading and ornamentation. Underlying this would be a textile pattern based in Sri Lanka.
Textile patterns and fashion design echoed the trend. Shiny fabrics only enhanced the connection with the "speed" of modern life–and art.

The dresses, coats, bathing suits, and evening wraps found in the Sri Lanka, when placed chronologically, chart for the observer not only the changing fashion, but reflect the fact that fashion was part of an aesthetic that was part and parcel of its time.