design

Hawthorne & Heaney on Wedding Invites

September 25, 2020 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Quite a few months ago, we were working on this really fun project that got us yearning for the summer when it was still a bit grey.

With it’s bright colours and quirky design, these have to be about the coolest wedding invites on the block. We were tasked with adding the stitching to the edges of these postcards in a thick, bright pink thread.

We would be chuffed to get one of these through the post, I’m sure you would agree.

So if you are planning now for a smaller, more personal feel to your invitations, why not consider having us help you with your own stitching style touches?

Hawthorne & Heaney visits the Designers Guild Exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum

March 5, 2020 by Natasha Searls-Punter

The Designers Guild is a renowned design studio that has played a key role in the world of interiors. Established in 1970 by Tricia Guild OBE, the Designers Guild has since reinvented interior design within our homes. From furnishing fabrics,wallcovering and upholstery to bed and bath collections, it has grown from its humble beginnings in London to becoming an influential global successful brand.

Out of the Blue: Fifty Years of Designers Guild is the exhibition currently being held in celebration of its long history and influential power at the Fashion and Textiles Museum in London. It explores the creative approach of Designers Guild’s founder, Tricia Guild OBE, looking at her inspiration, design methodology and the techniques, processes and materials that go into each and every collection.

Hawthorne & Heaney visits the Designers Guild Exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum London Hand Embroidery

The museum first leads into a sitting space that showcases the beautiful wallpaper that was specially designed to celebrate the Out of the Blue exhibition in all its majestic beauty and detail. It is here that you can witness the evolution of the initial hand painted imagery into its finished high quality digitally printed wallpaper as well as a chance to sit down to flick through fabric samples and the accompanying exhibition book, ‘Out of the Blue: Fifty Years of Designers Guild’.

Hawthorne & Heaney visits the Designers Guild Exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum London Hand Embroidery

The early years

This leads onto the main exhibition space that gives us an insight to the unique collections that the studio has created over the years. This includes the Village Collection, created within the early years, rich with colours and a unique style, as well as a look into Tricia Guild’s love for floral designs that has played a key role throughout Designers Guild’s history through the Flower Power space.

Hawthorne & Heaney visits the Designers Guild Exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum London Hand Embroidery

Travellers’ Tales: Indian Summer Travellers’ Tales: Venetian

In contrast, the collections for Travellers’ tales brand shows the impact of different cultures within the Designers Guild’s collections. The Venetian collection draws inspiration from the elegant ornate designs of the Italian Renaissance and the Indian Summer collection is cleverly draped to invoke the feeling of summer and rich culture alongside its beautiful colours.

Hawthorne & Heaney visits the Designers Guild Exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum London Hand Embroidery

The Shape of Modernity

The Designers Guild has also looked towards Modernism through The Shape of Modernity which combines many products both current and in the past, often as a result of working in collaboration with many designers, resulting in a stunning space that is full of geometric patterns and ombre patterns that are digitally printed today at a large scale.

Hawthorne & Heaney visits the Designers Guild Exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum London Hand Embroidery

Silks Embroidery and crewel work

The upstairs exhibition space explores the design process that goes into each collection. With displays looking at silk and embroidery it looks at the fabrics, colours to techniques and the target audience. These aspects that are carefully considered and laid out alongside their finished products, giving us the insight into the inspiration and the carefully thought out properties of each object.

Hawthorne & Heaney visits the Designers Guild Exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum London Hand Embroidery

There is also a particular emphasis towards the importance of moodboards and hand painting techniques. With every collection, Tricia Guild always starts with mood boards that draw inspiration from numerous sources such as architecture and fashion. Using these moodboards the design studio experiment with hand painted imagery before getting developed and refined digitally. While the use of rotary screen printing used in the beginning has been replaced by digital printing in 2010, each design starts of life by being hand drawn before being developed into the highest quality products and designs.

Overall, this exhibition is a great celebration of the fifty years of Designers Guild with a fantastic insight into the history and the collections. A fantastic source of inspiration for those that are passionate about the home and interiors and I can’t wait to see what the next fifty years will bring.

Words and photos by Jenny Li

Out of the Blue: Fifty Years of Designers Guild

14 February – 14 June 2020

Fashion and Textile Museum,

83 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3XF

Opening Hours:

Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm

Thursdays until 8pm

Sundays until 5pm

Ticket Pricing: £9.90 Adults / £8.80 concessions / £7 Students / Free entry for under 12s

Hawthorne & Heaney visits McQueen’s Old Bond Street Show Space

February 6, 2020 by Natasha Searls-Punter

London is very lucky to be able to offer a wealth of great free exhibitions and museums on many subjects. This open to all attitude really helps to keep feeding the minds of our designers and innovaters that one can go out and have your eyes opened to all sorts of information. One such jem that might be a little lesser known is the top floor of the flagship Alexander McQueen store on Old Bond Street.

They have started to use the stop floor as more of an exhibition type space, sharing insights from the vast archives that the house of McQueen holds. At the moment, the space is dedicated to roses, curated by the Creative Director Sarah Burton.

What we found really special about this space, as an embroiderer in particular is that you can get right up close to the pieces to see the details often lost in show and large scale exhibitions. Something that we found even with very well done exhibitions like Savage Beauty. In addition to this they are sharing a lot of the background research and technical craftsmanship that goes into making a collection and show with this kind of dramatic results. There are development moodboards, fitting notes, embroidery placements onto pattern pieces and draping directed onto the model. There is also a viewing booth with footage from the shows to fully round out the experience and see it in the final context for which it was intended to be consumed.

If you find yourself in the area, it’s definately worth a trip it to see some beautiful things and get some of the background scoop on how these things all come together. The notes and quotes from behind the scenes really give you a sense of being emersed into their world. We are already looking forward

Hawthorne & Heaney for Modular by Mensah

November 27, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Kusheda Mensah with her Furtiture (labels just seen)

Image: @modularbymensah @olivialrhodes ⠀⠀

We just love it when we get to see a great project all come together, event better when we have been priviliged enough to be a part of it. One such project was earlier this year when we are approached by Kusheda Mensah from Modular by Mensah to produce some embroidered labels for her latest project, in conjuction with Adidas.

Embroidered labels

Having graduated from LCC, British born Ghanaian designer Mensah produces pieces in her signature playful but functional style. Seeks to bring people together and promoting better social behaviours, her furniture has values as well as purpose. This collection with Adidas also demonstrates the kinds of beautiful furniture that can be made sustainable and recycled materials.

Revive 1 0754
@kvadrattextiles ⠀⠀
Image: @modularbymensah @olivialrhodes

”Inspired by playfulness, these modular shapes seek to redefine the idea of sustainable social well-being. Made from recycled foam and post-consumer recycled PET fabrics.”

@modularbymensah x @adidas ⠀⠀
Caught waste, 2019
Image: @modularbymensah @olivialrhodes

The very small text and sheer fabrics provided some technical challenges for the embroidery but with some creative thinking, they came out very smart.

Embroidered label

We can’t wait to see what this exciting designer does next!

Embroidered label

Hawthorne & Heaney visits Chihuly: Reflections on Nature at Kew Gardens

October 3, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

This visit may not be very embroidery specific, but given any opportunity to see Dale Chihuly’s work is always worth grabbing with both hands. So when they announced that they would be displaying his work in the world’s most biodiverse place, Kew Gardens, a visit was always going to be on the cards.

Temperate House

After falling in love with his work based on just one piece, ‘Chandelier‘ which hangs over the Rotunda at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, to say that I was excited is somewhat of an understatement. The exhibition does not disappoint. I say exhibition but there is only one small (relatively) part of the displays that is an exhibition in the traditional sense. The way the Chihuly’s works have been displayed amongst the permenent delights of Kew Gardens would be better described as an intergration.

Waterlily House

In the ‘exhibition’ building there is a display of Chihuly’s smaller and support works which gives a good insight into the artist’s process. The images shown here are just a small taste of the pieces on show as there are many to discover arranged thoughtfully around the gardens.

Victorian Glasshouse

You will have to be quick as the pieces will only be on display until the end of October 2019, however they do also offer night tickets for a different viewing experience which sounds pretty magical as the evenings draw in and the temperature drops. If you need any more excuses to get down to Kew, they have a blog that will offer you 8 more reasons.

Chihuly: Reflections on Nature

Until 27th October 2019

Tickets from £12

Images courtesy of @tashasealspunter

Hawthorne & Heaney visits ‘An Enquiring Mind: Manolo Blankik’ at the Wallace Collection

August 21, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

‘A Girl Threading a Needle by Candlelight’ by G. Schalcken

The Wallace Collection is a hidden gem in London’s art history crown, which even this museum buff and lifelong Londoner has only just discovered. Set in a stunning 18th Century building on Manchester Square (just off Oxford Street) it is hard to believe it has taken this long to come across it. Housing some very famous works of art such as Hals’s ‘Laughing Cavalier’, Boucher’s ‘Madame De Pompadour’ and many Gainsborough’s there is plenty to see if you fancy a bit of an oppulent afternoon in the city. For keen stitchers, there are some stunning tapestry works as well as these 17th century wall hangings from Italy featuring lots of goldwork techniques. Now, until the end of August they have upped the ante a bit further by adding stunning couture shoes into the mix.

Wall hangings, Italian, c. 1650, maker unknown

For a limited time the Wallace Collection is also displaying a selection of footwear superstar Manolo Blahnik amongst their artworks. Unlike many other fashion exhibitions, this is more of an intergration of the shoes in amongst the other art, they sit alongside the permenant collection (sometime on them!) in carefully arranged bell jars. This makes the exhibiton much more intimate as you feel you can get up close to all the pieces on display and all are treated with equal respect.

The selection of shoes in each room has been themed to compliment the artworks they are among. A particular favourite of mine was the oval drawing room where the most decadent shoes Blahnik designed for Sofia Coppola’s film ”Marie Antoinette” are shown amongst the sweet coloured room featuring Fragonard’s ‘Swing’ and Boucher’s ‘Madame de Pompadour’.

From an embroidery perpective there are a few pieces that standout as particulally beautiful. These boots ‘ Lepanto’ (Davee) 2003 look to be a combinations of hand painting and embroidery to a very rich effect.

These pink petal encrusted pair called ‘Amir’ 1997 look like they belong with some of the dresses from the ‘Designer of Dreams’ Exhbition which is still on at the V & A Museum

Of course, there are beads so we couldn’t not mention ‘Zarina’ 2015 which are the very definition of encrusted.

Downstairs is a wall of the original sketches for shoes on display upstairs, showing Blahnik’s distinctive style and flare.

Overall it has all been very respectly done. It is clear from the selection that Blahnik is passionate about beauty and craftsmanship with many skills shown in his designs and revisited throughout the years. There is not much information on each of the pieces, a simple sticker of each one’s name and year leaves you with a few questions perhaps, but lets you enjoy them uninterupted.

‘An Enquiring Mind: Manolo Blahnik at the Wallace Collection’ is on until the 1st Sept 2019, Entrance is free.

Hawthorne & Heaney’s Special Project

March 29, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Here at Hawthorne & Heaney we had a bit of a special project on at the moment for a certain wedding that took place in September 2018. We were tasked with creating the chasuble for the priest to wear for our Director’s wedding.

Approaching a garment like this is a sizeable task because of the importance of the imagery and the congregation that will see it. Designed by our director, the cross shaped design features a large image of the holy spirit as a dove at the top. This was inspired by an old piece of cut work embroidery which we are reinterpreting for machine embroidery. We wanted it to retain some of the original cutwork movement which can be seen in the direction of the running stitches and feathers. This also informed the choice of metallic silver for the details to get that shimmer amongst the sheen of the white machine thread.

The middle section has a series of flowers which we focused on the shading of them amongst the raised scrolls and braid work.

Down the bottom we have the lamb of god: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” John 1:29. For his imagery we wanted to emulate a similar texture to that of the dove but with a more ‘wooley’ nature.

Each section of the embroidery has to be tidyed and finished by hand which you may be able to see from some of the earlier photos where the design is still on the machine, the stitching looks a bit rougher than the polished finish we were going for.

We also added some crystals and small hamd details at the end which added those final details to make it sing.

But even when we were done with it, that was not the end of its journey as it was delivered to the tailors who made it into the chasuble itself.

Re-interpretting originally hand embroidered designs in machine embroidery can be quite challenging to give it a style of its own and not to look like a lesser version of the hand embroidered piece. We aim not to replicate it, but to reimagine it.

Hawthorne & Heaney: Intern Projects

August 30, 2018 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Hawthorne & Heaney has been very fortunate to have a series of wonderful students who come to the studio as interns to learn about the industry and experience a working studio. But what do they actually do while they are with us I hear you ask?

What they work on day to day is very changeable but for our longer term interns we like them to have a project of their own ongoing whilst they are with us. The gorgeous images you see here are from our most recent intern, Elsie Wong who was working on some floral motifs for us along side her other duties.

She draws on her Singaporean heritage and Central Saint Martins experience to bring her clean yet delicate style to these pieces.

She then went on to translate one of the pieces into embroidery using one of the techniques learnt in her classes at the London Embroidery School, specifically Limerick Lace.

Here is is presenting her final piece to us demonstrating the design process from design, to draft, to embroidery. I’m sure you will agree, great job Elsie! What do you think?

If this has taken your fancy and you would like to join us as an intern, please see the internships blog or jobs section of the website for application as we are currently looking for someone to join us for an immediate start.