Over the past year our home in Upperlands has seen some significant changes; the beginnings of our factory expansion, hiring a new creative director and a state of the art digital printer. A vision that is now becoming real with this week’s launch of our new contemporary soft furnishing brand Earthed.
Earthed is a brand rooted in this land and worked out through the technology of the future. It represents the pioneering spirit that exists at the core of our company’s genetic makeup. Combining 300 years’ worth of linen expertise that is unmatched anywhere else in the world with new thinking to deliver collections as captivating as the land surrounding it.
At Earthed’s helm and directing this thinking is our new creative director Duncan Neil. Born in Scotland, Duncan has trained and worked throughout the UK creating patterns and producing prints for Vivienne Westwood, Marc Jacobs, Andrew Martin and Marks and Spencer. Duncan brings with him a natural fascination and curiosity for how materials and patterns combine.
Earthed is the combination of a number of interests; nature and colour. Inspired visually from the natural world surrounding us, not just as we first see it aesthetically but also how we interact with nature and study its elements. Colour will always be at the fore throughout the collections, with a central focus on the emotive feelings that colour evokes. Duncan speaking earlier this week gave us an insight into the brand’s vision-
I love the power that colour has to change our mood and central to our ethos are colours that excite, inspire or relax. A large part of the vision for Earthed centres around UK textile manufacturing. Textile production throughout the UK and Ireland was once at the forefront of global trade and it is saddening to see how much industry has been lost, and most importantly the skill sets that are fading. Creating quality, beautiful prints is far from easy as there are so many variants; from the fibres used in the base cloth, to the bleaching and preparation, to the chemistry required for printing, to the steaming to fix the dyes to the washing and softening- each part is pivotal to the outcome of the final product.
Earthed is different to other furnishing brands on the market, emerging within William Clark puts Earthed in quite a unique position. We have a team of highly skilled workers with years of experience working with these processes and this expertise has been instrumental in allowing us to create quality digital prints.