Tell us a bit about yourself. I grew up in the south with a father in finance and a mother who was a chemist so how I ended up in fashion is still kind of a mystery. I did grow up around multiple generations of women who sewed, crochet and quilted, like most of us…
Category Archives: PIONEERS
Since launching her eponymous fashion label in 2009, French designer Olympia Le-Tan has earned a cult following for her whimsical, playful and artisanal approach to making accessories. From the outset she has been producing stylised ‘storybook bags,’ hand-woven clutch bags in the same size and shape as limited-edition books, featuring ‘covers’ with references to pop…
One might say that tartan runs through my veins! I’ve always had a deep and personal connection to the Scottish Arts. Growing up with a bass drumming dad, I was surrounded by kilts, bagpipes and Highland Games. From a very young age, I was completely mesmerized and hooked. Since the age of three, being fitted…
Now in her 93rd year, Colombian contemporary fibre artist Olga de Amaral makes woven textile art that is reliant on a slow, structured approach, one that results in striking, monumental woven wall hangings and installations that are deeply embedded with exquisite craftsmanship. Yet she also relies on spontaneity and intuition, choosing to forgo pre-planned ideas…
Innovation was at the heart of Ruth Adler Schnee’s design practice, which encompassed radical, modernist building interiors and woven textiles throughout the mid-century modernist era. After fleeing to the United States in 1938 to escape the Nazi regime, she went on to forge a monumentally successful career at a time when opportunities for women and…
American contemporary artist Janet Echelman makes vast, diaphanous sculptures that mimic the flowing patterns of nature, resembling air, water, wind and light. Made from colossal nets and strands of rope, her awe-inspiring aerial constructions merge aspects of fibre art with architecture, landscaping, and engineering, a fusion that has allowed her to entirely transform a vast…
Self-taught Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave had an uncanny ability to transform humble sheets of paper into the texture and pattern of fabric, from the soft silk of satin to the raw texture of linen. She brought them together into the most ornate costumes and dresses which pay homage to the history of fashion and…
Frances Featherstone’s indulgent and richly decorative paintings convey individuals caught in quiet moments of domestic bliss, gazing out of the window, lounging on the sofa, or (most commonly) curled up in bed under layer upon layer of plush, vividly patterned fabric. Looking down on these duvet dwellers from above, she captures them seemingly unaware, lost…
The American-Japanese sculptor, furniture designer and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi was one of the most singular and ambitious voices of the 20th century. Throughout his long and prolific career, Noguchi produced gardens, playgrounds, sculptures and monumental public art, along with furniture and architecture, which merged Japanese and American visual culture, and became part of his…
From psychedelic swirls to towering fragments of brutalist architecture, the pioneering textiles of British designer Barbara Brown encapsulated the spirit of the 1960s space age. Looking to the future of design, she took inspiration from – as she put it – “machines and architecture”, to create visually striking patterns featuring vivid colours and dizzying optical…
Textile designer and artist Althea McNish holds a significant place in history, as the first designer of African-Caribbean descent to find international success. Her lively, exuberant textiles were a breath of fresh air in postwar 1950s Britain, injecting the cultural landscape with great swathes of lush, tropical colour. Turner found the inspiration for her fertile…
20th century British artist Henry Moore’s monumental sculpture is widely known and celebrated across the world, but perhaps less well studied is his intriguing relationship with textiles. During the 1940s and 1950s, Moore produced a body of textile designs, which open up a new understanding of his visual language, and his way of seeing and…
The English late 19th and early 20th century designer Charles Francis Annesley (CFA) Voysey made a remarkable contribution to British design, through architecture, furniture design, wallpaper, textiles, and more. During his lifetime, he earned a widespread reputation as a leading light in the Arts and Crafts movement. Much like his contemporary William Morris, Voysey believed…
Japanese fashion designer and powerhouse Issey Miyake cared deeply about the relationship between clothing and the living, breathing bodies that inhabited them. He designed clothes that were meant to be worn, believing they were only truly complete once they had been integrated into the lives of their wearers. Yet there was nothing ordinary or basic…
Frank Lloyd Wright might be best known as one of most revered American architects of entire 20th century – he pioneered the Prairie Style, along with ‘organic architecture’ designed in harmony with nature, and cutting-edge icons including New York City’s Guggenheim Museum. But perhaps less well known is his brief foray into textile and wallpaper…
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