Meet Juliet Travers, London based fabrics and wallpaper designer. Since studying printed textiles for interior furnishings, Juliet has gone on to working at some of the most prestigious interior fabric companies, like Fox Linton, Cole and Son, Colefax and Fowler until later she gained her most valuable of experiences at De Gournay. Read our interview with Juliet on venturing into digitally printed wallpaper, studying blossom trees throughout 2018's spring and her lady-bug desk!
Growing up, what profession did you see yourself in?
When I was little I loved drawing cartoon characters and always hoped I would be a cartoonist! My mum is wonderfully artistic and she hand painted my bedroom walls with characters like Paddington Bear, Postman Pat, Dumbo, Mrs Tigglewinkle and many more. She copied them perfectly and when I was 11, we painted a Winnie the Pooh scene on the playroom wall together. I was so chuffed at how it looked just like the original drawings from the book! As I grew up I became fascinated with textiles and my sewing machine was my best friend. I then studied textiles for interiors at university so looking back, I was always focusing on imagery of some sort and it's funny how it started on the walls at home, painting with my mum and now here I am as a wallpaper designer!
About The Project
How did you and lucinda meet?
We first met at Decorex when I launched my company in 2013. She loved my Safari wallpaper collection and took away some samples and then we met up again early this year to come up with this very special collaboration!
Why did you want to take on this project?
Why wouldn’t I! It’s a dream come true for a wallpaper designer and to work alongside a brand like Dragons. It's something I never thought I would ever get the chance to do. All my existing wallpapers are designed at a much smaller scale and in repeat format too so creating a wallpaper that mimics the effect of a mural was a new avenue that I wanted to explore. Plus, the Blossom Tree wallpaper panels are produced by using a completely different process as my own collections are printed using gravure cylinders. This was delightful opportunity to create something very special for both me as an artist/wallpaper designer and for Dragons of Walton Street who wanted to launch their first ever wallpaper design.
Where did you begin after receiving the brief?
The Linen Blossom artwork was the catalyst for this wallpaper design so Lucinda leant me a canvas with beautiful hand painted blossoms as a reference and studied hundreds of blossom trees, flowers, petals and leaves. I then drew miniature versions and painted small case studies to finalise composition, layout and colour palette, before painting the full life size mural.
Exactly how many blossom trees did you study to get to the final shape?
Hundreds! I began painting in April which was perfect timing to draw from life in the UK, London was bursting with blossom and I visited many parks looking at shape, colours, texture and style of tree. Every tree I looked at was completely different so I sat down with the Dragons team and we chose the tree shape I would use for reference together.
What do you like about digitally printed wallpaper?
The process captures every brush stroke and colour in my original hand painted drawing so beautifully. I’m used to gravure which consists of many separate layers and colours and texture differ depending on which layer. Whereas the digital process is just one print run of an exact match to the original artwork so as an artist, I knew what the finished product would look like when I sent the art work to the factory. It also opens so many doors to custom sizes and scale too, which you can’t do with the gravure process so it’s a very exciting method to consider for future designs.
How long did the large scale painting of the tree take?
Being a director of a small company, I still had to work on quite a few other things at the same time such as speaking at various events, taking client orders and also travelling to meet with them, so I was working on this project on and off for about 8 weeks. The final 3 weeks were solely dedicated to painting the Blossom Tree, non stop 12 hours a day!
Thank you so much for having a chat with us!
Finally please tell us about your favourite piece of furniture when you were little?
My mum and dad found a local Scottish carpenter who was also an artist (I grew up in south west Scotland) who made the most beautiful desk and hand painted it with lots of bumble bees and ladybirds. It was my 10th birthday present and it’s now in my home in the countryside. It still looks as good as new and I will always treasure it forever.
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