Tag: vintage textiles

Vintage shaving cloths

Vintage 1950s linen barber shaving cloths

We bought these vintage shaving cloths this week. Kept in traditional barbers, they were used for wiping cut-throat razors.

Vintage 1950s Irish linen barber shaving cloth made by Dunmoy Vintage 1950s linen barber shaving cloth with inscription: This is the cloth To wipe the blade To spare the towel To save the money To pay for the house That you built.

We thought they were fabulous – each having wonderful graphic illustrations featuring facial hair in its myriad of forms… and in one case, a little verse extolling the money-saving virtues of razor cloths over towels.

Vintage 1950s linen barber shaving cloth Vintage 1950s Irish linen barber shaving cloth made by Dunmoy. The Fitz Razor Line

These vintage shaving cloths are made of linen and date from the 1950s/60s era.

Vintage 1950s linen barber razor cloths

Having dealt with vintage homewares for many years, endless linen items from Northern Ireland have passed through our hands – manufacturers such as Dunmoy and Ulster Weavers. In addition to tea towels and place mats, it seems that razor cloths were also part of their massive output.

Vintage 1950s linen barber razor cloths

We thought that they had lots of potential as wall decoration in a vintage styled barbers or hairdressers… or would be equally at home in a domestic bathroom. They could be suspended from a row of small hooks – or perhaps, better still, simply framed and hung – singly or perhaps in small groups.

Designer Desire: Sven Fristedt

Montage of Sven Fristedt textile designs | H is for Home

Sven Fristedt is one of the most successful and prolific textile designers to come out of Sweden in the mid-20th century.

Since the mid-1960s, Sven Fristedt has designed dozens of fabric designs; primarily for IKEA and Borås Wäfveri. He began at Borås in 1965 and remained there until 1990, acting as the factory’s artistic leader between 1975 and 1977. Plexus, (the design is shown above – a repeating starburst-type pattern) which was the company’s first silk-screen print was also his first commercial design. It proved to be hugely successful. Amongst his other output for the company include Frutto, Frots i trädgården, Mitt Zoo, Oppo, Ormen, Pompelona and Päråna.

He designed for IKEA from 1968 to 1985 as is responsible for design lines such as ALFI, GLADA BLAS, MYRTEN and SKYAR.

In 2013, he collaborated with Hemtex, producing a gorgeous design with a repeating pear motif.

In a 2014 interview with the magazine, Scandinavian Retro, he shared:

Naturally I was influenced by others. Marimekko did fantastically dramatic things, and Josef Frank did some great pieces for Svenskt Tenn. I discovered the designer Ken Scott at a trade fair in Milan. He designed some really beautiful patterns for Falconetto… I am surprised about how many good things I did, at least there’s nothing I’m ashamed of.

Because they were produced in such large runs, his designs are readily available on eBay and Etsy.

Portrait of Sven Fristedtcredit

Additional image credits:

Bukowskis

Designer Desire: Gillian Farr

Montage of Gillian Farr fabric designs | H is for Home

When we featured Juliet Glynn-Smith in last week’s Designer Desire post, we discovered the work of Gillian Farr who was one of her contemporaries at Terence Conran Fabrics Ltd.

Two of Farr’s best known patterns for Conran are Master Tuggie’s and Gilliflower; both from 1964, the latter winning a Cotton Board Awards prize that year.

Prior to working at Terence Conran Fabrics, Farr was part of Liberty of London’s studio in the 1950s where she designed their now re-issued Mitsi print (the 5 colourways can be seen at the bottom of the montage). She later created Mirabelle – also re-issued – for the company in 1962 (the 3 colourways are at the top of the montage).

According to Anna Buruma, Liberty Archivist and author of Liberty and Co. in the Fifties and Sixties: A Taste for Design, she designed the pattern, circa 1964, of the pictured Jean Muir Liberty-print silk dress that once belonged to Joanna Lumley.

Gillian Farr’s work is included in a new exhibition (which runs until Sunday 2 June 2019) at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London. Her work also features in the accompanying book by Geoffrey Rayner and Richard Chamberlain (to be published 25th Feb 2019).

Additional image credits:
Kerry Taylor Auctions

Designer Desire: Juliet Glynn-Smith

Various designs by Juliet Glynn-Smith | H is for Home

We first featured Juliet Glynn-Smith (b. 1939) on our blog when we acquired a sheet of kitchen cards that she designed for Habitat. As well as being responsible for the illustrations in the shop’s very first catalogue she produced a number of textile designs for Conran Fabrics. These include ‘Prince of Quince’ (1965); the children’s designs, ‘Jackanapes’ and ‘Toy Cupboard’; ‘Lollipop’ (1966); ‘Petals in the Sky’ and ‘Daisy Spray’ from their Firecracker Collection (1969).

Although she’s best known for her Habitat work, she has also created designs for other firms. One such company is Hunkydory Designs Ltd. Three of the brand’s wrapping papers are included in the montage above; ‘Big Heart’, ‘Big Flower’ and ‘Big Stripe’, all from 1970. Also above are her ‘Fauna’ greetings cards and ‘Santa’ Christmas cards which she designed for the company the same year.

She worked for Parkertex – for whom she created the ‘Fanfare’ fabric design in 1968 – and for German company, Rasch doing designs for their ‘Contempora’ and ‘Künstler’ textile collections in 1973.

For Christmas 1967, Glynn-Smith designed a psychedelic screen print poster which advertised Thursday late night shopping at D.H Evans, an Oxford Street department store (now a branch of House of Fraser).

‘Zig zig’ and ‘Polygon’ (pictured side-by-side above) were two wrapping paper designs made under the name of Glynn Smith Associates in 1972.

As well a textiles and paper, Juliet Glynn-Smith also produced designs that were used on metalware. The square Britannia serving tray, included above, was for Reginald Corfield Ltd. in 1966. We’ve come across a pair of ‘Sprig’ storage tins for previously mentioned, Hunkydory Designs Ltd.

Image credits:

Pinterest | Shelf Appeal | V&A | Visual Arts Data Service