Hanna Vinlöf Nylén: Texprint Weave 2015

Hanna Vinlöf Nylén’s work centres around made up narratives inspired by her surroundings, daydreams, memorabilia and experiences.

Hanna’s graduate collection was inspired by how people from different age groups and demographics define their personal space by studying contrasting ways of living.

Hanna is originally from Sweden and moved to London 5 years ago and the concept for her collection originated from her passion for home décor.

She explains: “I decided to use myself as a starting point, for a person that has not lived in London for a very long time I have managed to accumulate a lot of objects that I consider beautiful, by this means everything from plates and cutlery to decorative ceramics. I use these objects to define my space and they are essential to me as they make it feel like my home. I would say I am a bit extreme in the sense that I want everything in my home to be aesthetically pleasing and organised, which is why I felt so intrigued to research into how other people define their space and what the objects around them that they encounter on a daily basis means to them.”

By change Hanna met and older couple that had lived in their house in North London for four decades, she describes that their house was an amazing source for her research as the house was full of stacks of porcelain, paper and memorabilia.

She continued her research by visiting a family in Kent with a home with small children and gorgeous designer furniture. Their house was beautifully decorated with surprising quirky details. Hanna says that what inspired her most was the playfulness and unexpected combinations, which naturally occurs when you live in a house with children.

Hanna describes that in her design process it not always a literal visual translation when she creates her designs. By writing down key words relating to the mood of each home she therefrom generates ideas to inform the layout of the designs.

For her graduate collection she had three key moods the first being “curiosities on display”, which inspired the idea of a collection with graphic layout and the importance of negative space in the patterns. The home of the older couple reflected “layers of memories” and Hanna translated that into working with inlays on the jacquard loom, layering big graphic shapes onto of smaller scale pattern using contrasting textures.

The key to the last home was to “expect the unexpected” and inspired her to achieve a balance in her collection between playful and sophisticated elements emulating the experience of the family home.

Hanna’s collection aims to encapsulate woven stories about contrasting ways of living by combining moods and drawings of belongings from the homes of the people studied. The result is an eclectic collection where she kept a playful approach to her designs through a range of innovative finishing techniques, embellishments and the use of bold and contradictory colours.

In the aim of making the range as sustainable as possible, the materials where carefully considered and the collection is primarily woven in wool, polyester and recycled yarns.

Hanna Vinlöf Nylén is a recent graduate from the BA (Hons) Textile Design course at Central Saint Martins, where she specialised in woven textiles.

Hanna will be exhibiting alongside the other Texprint winners  at Première Vision Designs in Paris. 15th – 17th September 2015

Text and images: Hanna Vinlöf Nylén