Presenting a diverse range of material from the Collier Campbell Archive, Paint! Pattern! Print! invites us into the exuberant world of pioneering designers Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell. Discover their creative journey from the first strokes of the paintbrush to the finished artworks and translation from design to textiles, fashion and homeware.
Sisters Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell worked alongside each other for over 50 years, creating vibrant painterly patterns that transformed printed fabric and the world of interiors. Their highly successful and prolific partnership as Collier Campbell brought British design to global audiences collaborating with brands such as Liberty’s, Heals and Jaeger.
Experimental and innovative from the start, the sisters became pioneers, taking control of the whole process from raw to finished printed cloth as designer converters. As a result, they were able to retain the rights to their own designs as well as develop their own colours and control the quality of both the cloth and the printing. For two women to enter the world of manufacture, approaching companies and making deals was groundbreaking. It was also a bold move at a time when Britain was facing a recession.
Today Sarah Campbell continues this process in her independent creative journey inspired as always by her passion for painting, pattern and print.
About the curators
Sarah Campbell is an internationally acclaimed textile designer who, together with her late sister Susan Collier, founded and ran a groundbreaking and renowned design partnership, creating iconic motifs for some of the industry’s greatest names for more than 50 years. Love of pattern and colour and an inventive freshness are the hallmarks of her work. Since 2011 Sarah has worked on her own – making, teaching, writing, and continuing to paint designs on cloth and paper both for commercial production and to special commission. She is the author of Hand-Painted Textiles (Herbert Press), monographs The Art of Pattern and Dailies, and co-author, with Emma Shackleton, of The Collier Campbell Archive, Fifty Years of Passion in Pattern.
Teresa Collenette is a design historian (V&A/RCA History of Design MA) with a special interest in the material culture of scissors. Her 2018 exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum, The Secret Life of Scissors explored the complex lives of scissors as ambiguous ‘things’ surrounded by superstition, myth and symbolism. Teresa has worked on a number of Fashion and Textile Museum exhibitions including, Liberty in Fashion, 1920s Jazz Age, Night & Day: 1930s Fashion and Photographs, The World of Anna Sui, Zandra Rhodes: 50 Years of Fabulous, Beautiful People: The Boutique in 1960s Counterculture and Kaffe Fassett: The Power of Pattern.
Dennis Nothdruft is Head of Exhibitions at the Fashion and Textile Museum. He has led the exhibitions team at the Museum since it was founded by Zandra Rhodes in 2003 and previously spent many years working as a design assistant in Zandra Rhodes studios in both San Diego and London. He has lectured widely on many aspects of fashion and textiles and has authored several books including Zandra Rhodes 50 Fabulous Years in Fashion, How to Draw like a Fashion Designer, How to Draw Vintage Fashion, Kaffe Fassett the Artist’s Eye and A History of Fashion for Children.
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In place of a permanent display, the Fashion and Textile Museum hosts a diverse programme of temporary exhibitions, displaying a broad range of innovative fashion and textiles from designers and makers around the world.
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