In the Studio

Thornback and Peel, in their own words

Interview FLORA THOMAS

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 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.

How did people react to your work?

JT: We were slightly out there with our designs.

DP: I think now people would immediately take to it but it wasn’t mainstream back then. We had an American agent who said that one buyer literally picked up a cushion, saw what she thought was a cockroach and chucked it across the aisle at a trade show.

Where do you find inspiration for your designs?

JT: It might be that we’ve been away for the weekend and seen something we love… and thought ‘that’s it’. Or we’ll think ‘right, we need to do something seasonal’ and go from there. We can only have one or two new designs a year, so it’s about editing what we have down to something we can make rather than coming up with ideas.

DP: Sometimes we look at our collection and think it’s not an obviously coherent mix of designs, and that’s fine by us. We love it. The ideas always come during downtime. Take our blackbird, there’s heaps of nostalgia in it. It comes from walking the kids to school: there’s a little blackbird on our route. The new cactus and bird print, as well as the pineapple, came from looking at Victorian hothouses and going to Kew.

The inspiration for the rabbit and cabbage was obviously Beatrix Potter. I grew up with a walled garden, so memories from my childhood end up on the page. Ideas often come when reading stories to our children. The tea cup design is inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

Tell me about the design process.

JT: Some of it is existing imagery that we doctor. 19th century engravings, for example, which are copyright-free.

DP: Then we draw into them. So take our blackbird, for example: when we found him he was very long – far too long – so we’ve squashed him up a bit. With our pea print, we found a beautiful old engraving and added the curly tail which is actually a from a pig in a previous design. It’s all very Frankenstein. Sometimes we have to redraw things because it’ll be too fine to print. Then it goes back and forth from page to table to computer.

Placing designs on products takes up a lot of our time. While some designers make a print, usually a fairly small repeat, then make heaps of fabric to cut up to make different things, we need the quality of line to be spot on, so we design each item individually.

JT: We’ve really thought about the placement of things. It’s slightly a rod for our own backs. We like to think it sets us apart. When the samples come in and they’re beautiful it’s a lovely moment. Our cactus has been a really easy ride, because it came out perfectly first time.

Tell me about your collaborations and limited editions.

DP: Over the years we’ve collaborated with lots of really exciting people. One of our first collaborations was with the wonderful Conran Shop. We did a couple of seasons: the first was a utensils range, then some products on the theme of gardens.

JT: They were exclusives for Conran so they came and went. The designs were of spoons, weighing scales, sugar tongs… on tea towels, aprons and placemats. Some elements were mixed up, so you’d have a fork where a fork is meant to be, but pliers in place of a knife. It was a really exciting time. We designed some banners for their shop which was really Delia’s forte - very theatrical.

DP: We designed deckchairs for Sarah Raven; exclusives for Oliver Sweeney; we’ve worked with GOOP, designing some bespoke tea towels.

JT: Gwyneth (Paltrow) asked us to create exclusive designs for her shop. It was a knife – her father’s knife, an apple, an American flag and a pirate.

What are you most proud of?

DP: We continue to work with Fortnum and Mason on exclusives. It’s brilliant, it’s lovely going into the shop and seeing our designs.

JT: It was an amazing brief - they have some beehives on top of their shop and they asked us to create a design featuring them. We love it and it has continued to sell really well.

What are your plans for the future?

JT: We want to do a cookbook! Our styling is so food-orientated.

DP: We’re working on a wallpaper and fabric project for this year, which we hope to launch in September, so we’ll see.

thornbackandpeel.com

Sometimes we look at our collection and think it’s not an obviously coherent mix