A designer of diverse experience and broad horizons, Rose de Borman’s work is curiously wonderful. We visited Rose in her shared print studio in Bermondsey.  Her work takes inspiration from her travels, and the silk screen-printed cushions featuring Narwhals (inspired by the BBC’s Frozen Planet) are her – and our – current favourites.

LLUSTRE.COM first met Rose at Field Work, the pop-up shop she runs with fellow designer Caitlin Hinshelwood. She invited us down to her shared print studio in Bermondsey, where she showed us how to screenprint.  Her designs are playful and compelling; she prints her drawings onto silk then hand colours them and makes them up into cushions or frames them as artworks.  We caught her over Christmas, before she traveled to India to source materials and then went on holiday in Uzbekistan.

Tell me a bit about yourself – how did you start designing textiles?
Well I have a fine art background – but before that I didn’t really know about textiles.  I started working for textile designer Helena Gavshon while I was doing my foundation year (and I still do – I’m sourcing materials for her in India next week), and that’s when I discovered textile printing.

The Textiles and Fashion course at Brighton was brilliant for me – it was very experimental and creative – lots of drawing and painting, and not so much commercial fashion stuff, which I liked!

What did you do after graduating?
We all had to do a gap year as part of our degree – I did printing at Zandra Rhodes.  Then I worked on a film in New Mexico for a few months.  I thought I might want to get into costume design, but I found the process too indirectly creative.  And the process to actually getting an interesting job in the costume industry is just so long – I realised I just needed to get my hands dirty.  But the scenery was wonderful, and it was a terrific experience.

Sounds exciting…What was the film?
The film was called Bordertown, it had Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas in it. I worked on a couple of others too – Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and the second to last Harry Potter film.  I also worked for a weaving company and did made props – I’ve done a bit of everything.

So what did you do after that?
I did a work placement in Paris with a trend prediction company.  I loved it in Paris – it was Paris! – but also the company had a massive library which was really interesting.  I really enjoyed the research bit of the job, but again, I realised quite early on that i needed to get my hands dirty!  I think I realised that I have a specific style that wouldn’t fit in neatly within another business.  I love working with other people and I really enjoy collaboration, but I need to have direct interaction with colour and paint and dyes!

I was really lucky to be involved with Texprint – which gave 24 textile graduates a stand at the Première Vision trade show in Paris.  That was really great for me.  We had to go with a collection of samples, and through that I got lots of contacts and some commissions.  I think I would have been too timid to have gone freelance without that experience.  Then six of us were taken to Hong Kong to do a trade fair there, which was pretty mental!

How was setting up as a freelancer?
Well I did a few bits of work for TV and film, and got some commissions from the trade shows.  Soon after I graduated I worked in fashion – which I still do – going to New York, Paris and around London.  I sell my designs to fashion designers, including Louis Vuitton, Lanvin, Marc Jacobs, Anthropologie, Whistles, Liberty, Bamford and All Saints.  But I prefer the projects where I work one on one with design companies, be it fashion houses, interior companies ( I have fabrics available by the metre at Nicholas Herbert on Lots road which were designed in close contact with him), interior designers or private clients.  I prefer that to just handing it over for them to add their stamp on.

I think now, with my hand painted silk pieces I have found a balance between the painterly one-off nature of fine art  while working in the design industry.  All of my previous work experience has really helped me get to this point, and I think I’ve found my feet in the industry.

What kind of commissions do you get?
All sorts of things.  I get quite a lot of requests for personalised cushions, with family names on and that sort of thing.

I’ve just been asked to make a quilt themed around someone’s family story, and another person has asked me to make a headboard to reflect the view out of the window – I absolutely love that sort of creative job!

Do you work a lot with Caitlin Hinshelwood (of Field Work)?
No – we used to show our portfolio together, but now we work seperately but just come together to do Field Work – the pop up shop.  Our work shares a certain aesthetic, so it works quite well together, and most of the textiles we sell at Field Work are ours.

Do you have another studio, apart from this printing studio?
Yes – I have a place on Hackney Road where I do all my drawing and painting, and have loads of images stuck all over the walls.  And then I come here, to this printing studio where you can book a table and do all my printing.  And then I give all the pieces to a seamstress who makes up the products.

So you don’t sew the products yourself?
No! That would take ages.  I do the patterns and everything, but then I get an expert to do the sewing!

What’s your favourite of your designs?
Well I always like my most recent work best, so at the moment its these narwhal prints.  I only just found out about Narwhals – on the BBC’s Frozen Planet, and I just thought they were amazing.  So now I’ve incorporated them into my work. Actually, somebody has just asked me to make a piece to be framed, with my polar bear on one side and my narwhal on the other.  That’s something that I’d like to do more of actually – get back into the fine art side of my work by making images to be framed, rather than exclusively for products.

And what’s your favourite part of the design/making process?
I really love the painting and drawing stage.  Actually, I kind of like the steaming part, although its pretty nerve wracking.

After you’ve printed and painted the fabric, you put it into this steamer and it removes all the bleaching agents and dyes, and when it comes out its never quite how you expected it to be.  Its always a tense moment!

What’s the first thing you ever remember making?
I made a water bowl for my guinea pig – he was always knocking things over, so I made him a really heavy bowl out of clay.  And I was always making things out of paper.  My mum threw most of the stuff I made away, but she kept this bunch of flowers I made, which were coloured on one side, black and white on the other – pretty impressive stuff for a kid, actually!

And what’s your favourite object in your home?
This is quite weird, but its probably this brilliant thing Caitlin and I found in Mexico when we were there a couple of weeks ago – it’s a homemade funeral procession in a box made by a woman in a market.  Its so weird, but also so brilliant – we asked her if it was a traditional Mexican thing, but she said no, she’d just made it up!

www.rdeborman.co.uk

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All images courtesy of Rose de Borman or LLUSTRE