Famous Textile Designers - 5 of the Most Famous and Influential Textile Designers of All Time
Famous Textile Designers
With 5 of the most famous textile designers in history!
Let’s talk about history! 🤓
Textile designs didn’t appear out of thin air—it took some greats to get the textile industry started. If you want to learn more about five of the most famous textile designers, then you’ve come to the right place!
The more you know about textile designs and the history of famous textile designers, the more you will sound like an expert in the field of textile design.
If you haven’t seen my YouTube video, check it out right here or right below ↓
Let’s dive right in!
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FaMOUS TEXTILE DESIGNERS
WHO ARE THE MOST FAMOUS TEXTILE DESIGNERS?
Among the most notable names in textile design history we have:
William Morris
Owen Jones
Gustav Klimt
Anni Albers
Lucienne Day
Let’s take a more in-depth look at each! 🔎
1 | WILLIAM MORRIS
William Morris is probably one of the most famous textile designers in history!
William Morris was born Walthamstow, Essex, where he studied Classic at Oxford University.
He is most notable for founding Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. Decorative Arts Firm (later renamed to Morris & Co.) which became high fashionable and much in demand by the textile industry. William’s firm profoundly influenced interior decoration throughout the Victorian period with various designs of tapestries, wallpaper, fabrics, furniture, and stained glass windows.
William Morris is also well-known for his many publications of epic poems and novels from the 1800’s. He was recognize as one of the most significant cultural figures of Victorian Britain as a result.
Much of his work today can be found in art galleries and museums. His designs are very much alive and active to this day and still out in the world—which is really cool!!
2 | OWEN JONES
Owen Jones—born in London in 1809 where he studied at Royal Academy Schools and became a versatile architect and designer. He was also one of the most influential design theorists of the 19th century believe it or not.
He helped pioneer modern color theory and his theories on flat patterning and ornaments still resonate with contemporary designers today! Cool, huh?
Owen Jones advised on the foundation collections for the South Kensington museum and formulated decorative art principles, which became teaching frameworks for the Government School of Design, then at Marlborough House.
Jones looked towards the Islamic world for much of his inspiration, using his studies of Islamic decoration at the Alhambra to develop theories on flat patterning, geometry, and abstraction in ornament.
Goes to show why he’s a notable figure in the history of textile design!
3 | GUSTAV KLIMT
Who is Gustav Klimt? 🤔
Well… Gustav Klimt was born in the Austrian Empire in 1862—becoming a symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement.
Klimt is well-known and admired for his paintings, murals, sketches, landscapes, and other objets d’art—in simpler terms: pieces of art. His primary subject was the female body and for which his works were marked by a frank eroticism.
He was a successful painter of architectural decorations in a conventional manner and as he developed a more personal style, his work was the subject of controversy that culminated when the paintings he completed around 1900 on the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna were criticized as pornographic. Soon after, Klimt achieved NEW success with the paintings of his “golden phase,” many of which include gold leaf.
Klimt had a huge influence on younger contemporary artists who came after him and his time.
4 | ANNI ALBERS
The first female textile designer on this list—yay!
Let’s look at what makes Anni Albers one of the greatest textile designers in history.
Born in 1899 in Berlin, her mother was from a family in the publishing industry and her father was a furniture maker, so she already had this natural progression towards home decor. Even in her childhood, she was intrigued by art in the visual world. She painted during her youth and studied under impressionist artists like Martin Brandenburg and Oskar Kokoschka.
Here’s a quote from Albers that might spark some inspiration:
“In my case it was threads that caught me, really against my will. To work with threads seemed sissy to me. I wanted something to be conquered. But circumstances held me to thread and they won me over.” ✍🏻
Albers developed many functionally unique textiles by combining properties of light, reflection, sound absorption, durability, and minimized wrinkling and warping tendencies.
In 1949, Anni Albers became the first textile designer to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City—which is a huge freaking deal!
In 1961, Anni was awarded the Craftmanship Medal by the American Institute of Architects. Way to go, Anni—pretty amazing!
Her design work and writings on design helped establish design history as a serious area of academic study.
Wow wow wow! Anni Alberts… applause 👏🏻
5 | LUCIENNE DAY
Another famous female textile designer: Lucienne Day.
Born in 1917 in Surrey, England, she was the most influential British textile designer of the 1950s and 1960s.
Lucienne day drew on inspiration from other arts to develop a new style of abstract pattern-making in post-war British textiles known as “Contemporary” design. She was also active in other textile design fields including wallpapers, ceramics, and carpets and is particularly well-known for her postwar textiles.
Lucienne also perpetuated the English tradition of patterns based on plant forms, often incorporating stylised motifs derived for nature such as leaves, flowers, twigs, and seedpods.
What’s most admirable about Lucienne is the fact that she abandoned her dream of being a painter so that she could put that same inspiration and work into textile patterns. How amazing is that?!
SKETCHBOOKING YOUR STYLE
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