This month we launched a new fabric collection under Porcupine Rocks. It’s unconventional and not what the more traditional interiors folk might consider as fabric for interiors. But we love it for the colour, joy and freedom it brings.
Fellow colour lover Liandri Fouche lives in Johannesburg, a city that has changed considerably over the last few decades. There she runs a thriving and colourful Graphic Design, Marketing and Illustration Studio. It’s Liandri’s illustrations and use of colour that caught my eye during one of the earlier phases of Lockdown.
Liandri has always been an aspiring creative. As a girl she sold hand-made cards full of glitter and stars, and falling back on her jewellery manufacturing degree,
she’s designed a jewellery collection, (I remember going through that phase too) and even launched a clothing collection with floral accents everywhere.
Towards the end of 2019 Liandri decided to turn her artistic hand to Surface Pattern Design. Not one to conform, Liandri knows that pattern designing has certain rules, but there is no real clear guide. Working under her studio name FREI - {pronounced fray} {means ‘to be free’} it was this artistic licence that Liandri found so liberating when manipulating her illustrations into pattern repeats.
Inspiration for her fabric collection called Freda comes from her Gran, Frederika. Full of memories, or even dreamed up events, of how they would set up an alfresco table, free in the Free State wind, surrounded by birdsong and flowers. Sipping on tea from fine floral Continental porcelain, feasting on home-made fluffy butterfly-cupcakes, topped with strawberry jam.
Liandri’s describes her journey poetically…
”Deeply rooted from a place of heritage and heart.
Inspired and dedicated to loved ones gone, but never apart, and others still with us.
Months in the making, dreaming-up pattern and play.
Honing colours, until production day.
Created for you to order and enjoy, YAH!”
You can see how Liandri has got lost in a world of whimsical patterns, colours and textures relating to mother nature and dreams. Her yearning to be free is so strong. It is now our greatest pleasure to bring these colourful cotton fabrics to the UK and free up some more conventional interiors moodboards.
The designs sit as a collection to be used together, layering one on top of the other. There are full pattern repeats in different colourways, perfect for making blinds, curtain or even bedspreads. There are fabrics with linear boarders, ideal for funky pelmets or hemming curtains or kitchen counter skirts. And, fabrics with centralised motifs giving scope for fun cushions. We hope you find ample opportunity to enjoy this fabric collection as much as we currently are in the studio.