I N T H E S T U D I O Thornback and Peel, in their own words
Interview F LO R A T H O M A S
JULIET THORNBACK AND DELIA PEEL are a British design duo. I visited their studio in Bloomsbury to quiz them on their success. How did you meet? DP: We were set up by a mutual friend - I was in the middle of a set-design job at a theatre and there was some down time between shows. I wanted to do some printing and I’d heard that Juliet was brilliant at making bags. So we met at The French House in Soho and decided to design and sell a collection of bags. JT: We invited all our friends to a private view. We’d made tote and evening bags, printed with anatomy: we had brains, gold teeth… we used lots of gold foiling and geometric prints. Lots of little beetles and bees. I was working in a florist, and on days off we’d do some printing and I’d go home and start making it up. But it was too labour intensive. We thought about what might be marginally less labour intensive - what’s flat? Deckchairs came next. DP: We did some tea towels. We were still printing everything ourselves. We did so for a really long time, way beyond when we should have stopped. When we had children we started to get some help; I was on maternity leave so we had an assistant - Juliet was pregnant at the
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time as well. She could barely reach the press over her pregnant belly. Over the course of five years we passed the business between us. Once with just two weeks of handover. Where were you selling your items? DP: Initially we continued to do private views. They’re great. People are kind but they’re honest! Then Liberty approached us. JT: We were in Deptford at Cockpit Studios, they do an Open Studio twice a year and a buyer from Liberty came along one summer and saw our work, they asked us for some cards, then we did our first trade show. DP: We sold to Family Tree in Exmouth Market too, initially it was lots of little shops which allowed us to understand the structure and the process of selling to stockists.
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