A legendary Latin American folk musician, researcher, poet, and performer, Chilean artist Violeta Parra (1917-1967) was also a remarkable artist, producing a large body of intricate quilts and embroideries, or ‘arperillas’, traditional Chilean patchwork pictures made from wool, thread, and repurposed textile fragments. She famously displayed these embroideries at the Louvre in Paris in 1964,…
Category Archives: PIONEERS
There is a spirited and playful quality to the textile and wallpaper designs of Dutch maker Ottoline de Vries, who established her eponymous company, simply called ‘Ottoline’, in 2011; since then her work has become an international success, gracing magazine spreads and interiors throughout the world. Ottoline, now based in London, is widely recognised for…
From her busy studio in the Netherlands, textile artist Milla Novo has been making great waves in the realms of interior design since launching her career in 2017. Widely recognised today for injecting a lease of new life into the traditional macrame craft, she creates vast, all-encompassing wall-hangings and installations, in which vividly coloured and…
Rising French textile artist Elise Peroi makes liminal artworks that hover between mediums; part tapestry, part painting, and part sculpture, her delicate and intricate work brings plant forms and subtle, naturalistic colours into semi-translucent constructions that act like doorways into another realm. Exploring the airy, breathable, and mutable properties of nature, she likens herself to…
What is Studio Wylder? Tell us a little about how it all started. Studio Wylder is a women’s clothing brand built on strong ethical and sustainable foundations. We create small-batch collections of thoughtfully curated, effortless pieces designed to blend beautifully into your existing wardrobe. I started Studio Wylder at my kitchen table in 2020, after…
A romantic sensibility runs through the patterned textiles of British designer Molly Mahon, whose vibrant, whimsical patterns are produced using traditional block print techniques. Her fabrics feature motifs inspired by the natural world, which she reimagines using bold, contemporary colours, and busy, intricate motifs that enliven the spaces they inhabit. She also places a strong…
Tell us a little about yourself and what Indigo Indigo means to you. I’m a 35 year old fabric shop owner and designer living on the west coast of Norway, in a tiny town with mountains and fjords surrounding us. I’m a toddler mum, dog mum and wife of a fellow creative type designer. When…
There is a striking, instantly appealing quality to London based designer Kangan Arora’s hand-printed textiles, which explore the eye-popping attraction of electrifyingly vivid colours. Her joyful and exuberant pattern designs blend the many cultural influences that have shaped her life, from her childhood in India to her life as a city dweller in London today,…
One of Britain’s most exciting and adventurous textile and wallpaper designers working today, Ellen Merchant places traditional print processes and high-quality materials at the heart of her creative practice. Inspired by the Arts and Crafts emphasis on hand-made design over mass-produced goods, her work embraces traditional, hand-block printing techniques and features intricate, ornate, botanical designs…
Leading Amsterdam design studio Buro Bélen have been steadily building their reputation as innovators in interior and textile design since 2012, and their work can now be found in major museum collections around the world. Their approach is simple yet admirable: to create useful products based on ethical production with a richly tactile, sensorial, and…
Contemporary, German-born textile artist Joana Schneider’s art takes many forms, from haunting, mask-like faces and rhythmic abstractions to excerpts of text. But running through her multifarious subject matter is a common theme; the techniques and materials associated with the fishermen and netmakers of the harbour areas in The Hague, an area she has come to…
Contemporary British artist Lucy Sparrow makes vast, immersive installations featuring hand-made felt objects that range from grocery store goods to full-scale replica works of art. Known colloquially as ‘the felt lady’, Sparrow has earned a widespread, global following in the past 10 years, because her exquisitely-crafted soft sculptures are as much a celebration of artisanal…
In the last six years since we first collaborated there has been an explosion of newcomers to the indie pattern industry. How has this affected Paper Theory? It’s amazing how much the sewing scene has changed in such a short time! I could never have guessed it. Competition in the market has grown hugely, which…
Renowned Australian Aboriginal artist Emily Kam Kngwarray (1910-1996) was one of the 20th century’s most remarkable artists, and a current large-scale retrospective at London’s Tate Modern pays homage to the depth and breadth of her legacy. She worked with predominantly with batik, and later acrylic painting on canvas, producing fantastically intricate and brilliantly colourful marks…
Tell us a bit about yourself. I’m Isabelle, I’m French, half Korean through my mom, and I currently live in France. As a student, I lived in the US for a year, in China for a year, and I worked in Berlin, Germany for three years before coming back to Paris right before Covid. What’s…
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