Design-Nation: Retail for Cultural Enterprises: Susannah Weiland

The tenth in our series on makers who create objects perfect for museum and gallery retailers is textile designer and embroiderer Susannah Weiland. Susannah’s distinctive products are what our virtual partnership with the Association for Cultural Enterprises is all about. You are invited to browse Susannah’s “stand” and examine her beautifully designed stitched and printed objects,  while imaging which ones would be great to find in a museum shop.

Susannah combines pencil drawing with hand embroidery and beading, to create original luxury interior products. Inspired by nature, each collection is based on the wildlife and surroundings in a particular location, often near to her southwest London base: Kew Gardens provided the inspiration for her first range The Botanical Collection. She is a keen photographer and the images caught on camera form the basis for her mainly monochromatic pencil drawings, which are printed onto fabric. Susannah painstakingly completes each individual piece through delicate embroidered and beaded highlights of vivid colour, a highly effective contrast to her black and white outlines.

Susannah trained as a graphic designer and pursued a career in the fashion industry as a textile designer for 20 years. Her expert understanding of fabric and yarn shows in her careful selection of silky and metallic threads to enhance her designs. Susannah creates one-off hand-embroidered artworks and cushions to collect, as well as reprinting her designs onto luxury interior products: wallpaper, furnishing fabrics and decorative plates. She is very happy to create one-off commissions.

Contact details for Susannah are here. Click here for no 11 in the series: potter Josie Walter.