Not just the man for cool seating and space age lighting, Verner Panton turned his creative hand to many other mediums, including textiles. This 1970s Grande rug by Verner Panton, which has just been reissued, is one such design.
Tag: textiles
Celia Birtwell book by Celia Birtwell and Dominic Lutyens
Interestingly, no one has written a book on Celia Birtwell, so it's about time one turned up. Which happens to be this Celia Birtwell book by Celia Birtwell and Dominic Lutyens.
Part life story, part feature on her work, Celia Birtwell features personal photographs and sketches of Celia, her family and friends, especially from her 'bohemian' life in the 1960s and 70s and images from her long association with David Hockney as both friend and muse. Of course, the flipside is Birtwell the designer, with the book also offering up a multitude of examples of her fashion and home fabrics.
Quadrille publishes the 208-page book in hardback from 3rd October 2011, with Amazon doing discounted pre-orders for £20.99. Also, look out for Celia Birtwell: In Conversation at the V&A, which takes place on Friday 23rd September. Who knows…you might get a signed copy on the night.
Find out more at the Amazon website
Flora Dora – textile designs from the 1950s and 60s
Flora Dora is a new online shop selling the rediscovered textile designs of Sheila Bownas, dating from the 1950s and 60s.
Chelsea Cefai bought the archive containing over 200 designs of Sheila Bownas at auction and has since been working to bring them to a wider market. The store, Flora Dora, begins with two collections: the above print, 'Pip' is from the 1963 collection and is available as a print and over the page is 'Rosa' from the 1959 collection which is available as cotton drill.
Klippan Adam and Eve Textiles
Acclaimed Swedish designers Bengt & Lotta have given their Scandinavian folklore style to another famous couple with their series of Adam and Eve Textiles for Klippan.
The illustration shows the first couple in their pre-fall state i.e. without clothes beneath an apple tree. The range includes a tablemat (£7.95), oven glove (£10.50) and apron (£27.50) with the design in silver-grey on a white background.
Buy them online at Illustrated Living.
Merchant and Mills Notions artwork print
A bit of a back story to explain this Notions artwork print: Merchant and Mills is a Drapers shop based in Hay on Wye. They sell all the dressmaking products you'd expect – from pins and scissors to thimbles and tape measures. They aim to source these from within the UK and are all sold and labelled with beautiful retro packaging. The packaging of these products, or 'notions', are what inspired this print.
Look closely at the print and you'll see the charm of the packaging: beautifully detailed illustrations of the objects coupled with great traditional typography, that make the objects themselves instantly covetable.
Surely the perfect print for anyone gifted with a needle, it costs £35.
Buy it online
Ascher Studio pop-up display in London
London's Brompton Road is having a series of interesting pop-up events at the moment. As well as the Skandium sale shop earlier this month, it's now hosting the Ascher Studio pop-up display.
Zika Ascher is well known for his role in the fabric industry in the twentieth century, providing fabric for everyone from Dior to Mary Quant. He's especially celebrated for the 'Artists Squares' series, when from the mid-Forties to the mid-Fifties he invited 51 artists such as Henry Moore, Picasso and Barbara Hepworth to design scarves – with the aim that contemporary art would in turn inspire innovative textile design.
