Brian Anthony Asquith (1930 – 2008) British silversmit
2022-12-29
Brian Asquith (1930 – 2008) was one of the principal figures in British silversmithing during the 20th century, now regarded as the industry’s heroic age. Read More →
John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) British social critic and writer.
2022-12-28
John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) was a British social critic and writer. His influential books The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851—53) show his interest in architecture, particularly the Gothic style. Read More →
Zandra Rhodes (b.1940) British fashion and textile designer
2022-09-27
Zandra Rhodes studied lithography and printing at Medway College before going on to the Royal College of Art to study textiles, graduating in 1964 during the height of the pop movement. She made a paper wedding dress that cost less than two shillings, motivated by this trend and the work of painter Roy Lichtenstein in particular (about 7 new pence). In 1967, paper clothing was all the rage: it was the ultimate representation of disposable apparel.Read More →
Susie Cooper (1902 – 1995) British ceramicist and designer
2022-09-26
Breakfast in an American middle-class home in the 1940s was often served on dishes designed by English designer Susie Cooper (1902-1995).Read More →
David Mellor (1930 – 2009) British metalworker and manufacturer
2022-09-21
Mellor specialised in metalwork, especially cutlery, and was regarded as one of Britain’s most well-known designers. He also built bus shelters and the traffic light system that is currently in operation throughout the United Kingdom, British Crown Dependencies, and British Overseas Territories.Read More →
Royal Designer for Industry – high quality industrial design
2022-08-19
The British Royal Society of Arts (RSA) established the Royal Designer for Industry designation in 1936 to encourage high-quality industrial design and elevate the reputation of designers. It is given to persons who have demonstrated “consistent excellence in beautiful and efficient industrial design.”Read More →
William Blenko (1854 – 1926) and Blenko Glassware
2022-08-17
Blenko established the first American factory to produce sheet glass for stained glass windows. Blenko’s early successes include providing glass for St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. The White House has a collection of Blenko table ware, used periodically. Wayne Husted pioneered the concept of “architectural scale” designs. Blenko’s “Historic Period” begins with Anderson in 1946 and includes work of Nickerson up to 1974.Read More →
Eric Ravilious (1903 – 1942) British wood engraver & ceramicist
2022-08-17
Eric William Ravilious was a British painter, designer, book illustrator and wood-engraver. He is particularly known for his watercolours of the South Downs and other English landscapes. He served as a war artist, and was the first British war artist to die on active service in World War II. Ravilious studied with Edward Bawden and Charles Mahoney at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London in 1928. He painted a series of marionette-like murals for Morley College, which were destroyed by bombing in 1941.Read More →
Laura Ashley (1926 – 1988) British fabric and fashion designer
2022-08-17
Laura Ashley was one of the first British designers to experiment with the concept of lifestyle marketing. Her romantic vision of nineteenth-century rural life, adapted to modern domestic realities, inspired a generation of middle-class Britons who returned to country life in the 1960s and 1970s.Read More →
Minnie Macleish (1876 – 1957 ) British textile designer
2022-08-17
She collaborated with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Constance Irving at London’s Foxton textiles and Amsterdam’s Metz store. Macleish was a prolific designer during the 1920s and 1930s, creating patterns for Morton Sundour fabrics.Read More →
Nigel Coates (b.1949) English architect and designer
2022-08-17
He co-founded Branson Coates Architecture with Doug Branson in 1985 before opening his architecture and design studio in 2006. He was a partner in the Branson Coates architecture and design studio and the founder of the radical NATO (Narrative Architecture Today, established in London in 1983) design group (established in 1985).Read More →
Walter Crane (1845 – 1915) British designer, artist and writer
2022-08-16
Walter Crane (1845 – 1915) was a British designer, artist and writer. He designed textiles, stained glass, wallpaper, and ceramics as a strong proponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. His books were available in both original and pirated copies in the U.S. Crane designed stained glass, tiles, wallpapers, embroideries, textiles, mosaics and decorative plasterwork.Read More →
Dame Mary Quant (b.1934) British Fashion Designer
2022-08-14
Mary Quant, a pivotal figure in British fashion design, studied art and design at Goldsmiths College of Art from 1952 to 1955 while also taking evening classes in clothing construction and cutting. In 1955, in Knightsbridge, London, she established her first shop Bazaar on King’s Road, followed by the second shop Terence Conran designed in Knightsbridge.Read More →
Jasper Morrison (b.1959) British Designer quirky, understated furniture
2022-08-12
Morrison produced quirky, satiric, understated furniture. His 1986 South Kensington flat was widely published in design magazines. He designed 1988 Door handles I and II, and a 1989 range of aluminium handles produced by FSB in Germany. Read More →
George Sowden – British/Italian Designer
2022-08-11
George James Sowden is a British designer. He was born in Leeds and active Italy. Between 1960-64 and 1966-68, he studied architecture, Gloucester College of Arts. Read More →
Christian Barman (1898–1980) British industrial designer
2022-08-07
Christian Barman was a key first-generation British industrial designer during the interwar years. He is best known for his 1936 electric iron for HMV, which he started designing in 1933. He studied architecture at Liverpool University and ran his practice until Frank Pick invited him to join London Transport as a Publicity Officer in 1935.Read More →
Lucienne Day (1917 – 2010) influential 🇬🇧 textile designer
2022-07-26
Lucienne Day was one of the most influential post-war British textile designers. She developed a unique style of pattern making. READ MORERead More →
Jaeger 🏴 clothes are not just fashion but function & lifestyle
2022-07-24
During the twentieth century, a movement arose that advocated for clothing to be worn as part of a sensible, healthy lifestyle rather than only for fashion. These concepts sprang from the work of nineteenth-century fashion reformers, in the same way, that English writer Edward Carpenter popularised the open-toed leather sandal for men. Read More →
Geoffrey Harcourt (b.1935) British Furniture Designer
2022-07-21
Between 1960-61, he worked at Latham, Tyler and Jensen, Chicago, and with Jacob Jensen in Copenhagen; in 1961, opened his studio in London, specialising in furniture design; from 1962; began designing seating for Artifort, the Netherlands, who produced more than 20 models of his furniture designsRead More →
Moorcroft British (ca. 1913) art pottery manufacturer
2022-07-20
William Moorcroft started Moorcroft, a British art pottery manufacturer, in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, in 1913.Read More →