Have you heard the news? Designer Kate Spade has taken a new muse: Florence Broadhurst. In the launch of Kate Spade’s Spring 2012 Collection (which heralds in Spade’s year of pattern campaign) you can find several of Broadhurst’s prints on apparel, bags and home décor accessories. This is a match made in heaven. Pairing Spade’s classic silhouettes with the bold aesthetic of the late surface design genius results in something that is uniquely fashionable.
Kate Spade's Spring 2012 Collection
To make this collection possible the Kate Spade design house collaborated with Signature Prints. The Australian based wallpaper and fabric studio has built their business around reproducing Broadhurst’s patterns. Thank goodness for David and Helen Lennie, the founders of Signature Prints! They are careful to keep the same level of artistic integrity as Florence did when she was running her original design studio.
Signature Prints current studio where they still are silkscreening the wallpaper by hand!
An archival image of Florence Broadhurst in her original screenprinting studio
Florence Broadhurst inspecting the pattern Japanese Floral during its orginial production
The new release of popular patterns such as Japanese Floral and The Egrets are part of Signature Prints new Brownstone Collection. For this new release, Broadhurt’s bold patterns are printed in a more muted color palette. The colors were inspired by Lennie’s recent trip to Brooklyn, New York to collaborate with Spade where she fell in love with the soft hues of the stone buildings lining the streets.
Brownstone Collection
Being one of the major distributors of Florence Broadhurst patterns in the United States, we are so thrilled to be a part of the excitement! We currently are featuring the new Brownstone Collection in our showroom with our new window display.
We carry a wide variety of Floence Broadhurst wallpapers and textiles here at Urban Source
To learn more about Florence Broadhurst and Signature prints you can visit their website: http://www.signatureprints.com.au/florence-broadhurst/
For further reading check out- Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret & Extraordinary Lives by Helen O'Neill
OR, better yet, come by the Urban Source showroom to see the wallpapers and textiles in person!