Last year just before I started thinking and designing the first collection of Cluth, I moved in with a friend of mine into her apartment. She has great taste and her apartment is full of beautifully curated pieces of furniture and art. She loves the mid-century modern lines and textures and brings them effortlessly into the apartment.
Before moving in with her I hadn't really considered mid-century design before. I was always previously more into homespun and folk inspired design. But seeing how these shapes were so beautiful got me all fired up and inspired.
The name mid-century design itself describes roughly the design created during the period in the middle of the 20th century between 1933-1965. With period shows like Mad Men showing beautiful apartments and design, it has become super popular again. Most people think of the furniture, but it was also shown in the architecture, fabrics and art of this period.
It was two designers in particular who inspired the quilts and textiles of Collection 1 - Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Lucienne Day.
Sophie Teauber-Arp was a lady of many talents, one of those annoyingly artistic people that seemed to be able to do anything she set her hand at. Artist, dancer, sculptor, singer and textile designer are a few of the titles listed on her wikipedia page. Looking at her art which is often a mix of contradictions, it is joyful in a way that is surprising as it was born from a time of war. Although her most famous work was pre mid-century, it’s her use of shapes that really grabbed me and inspired me for the Sophie Cushion.
Lucienne Day was one of the most influential British textile designers in the 1950s & 1960s. After the second world war people were ready for a change, they needed some colour and modernism after the bleak reality of the war. Often working with her husband who was a furniture designer, she created beautiful patterns often inspired by botany and the natural world. The curves of her early designs often mimicked the organic shapes that you find in flowers. And it's these curves and mix of colours in her designs that have been slightly echoed in the Lucienne Cushion.
Collection 1 is now available in the Cluth shop.