Newton Paisley

Newton Paisley designs tell the stories of endangered and neglected species, whilst rejoicing in their extraordinary diversity and beauty. Our mission is to celebrate nature and inspiring people to create beautiful, biophilic home-habitats. As reported by Pattern Observer, flora and fauna make up fully 70% of the textile design market across fashion and home interiors, yet often these designs are lick-and-stick or lacking context in the natural world. Newton Paisley designs are different – full of geeky specificity, authenticity, narrative, love….

At the risk of sounding cliché, our designs are all inspired by nature. And by artists like the ones mentioned in the Art section. Once the specific inspiration for a new collection strikes it’s then followed up with detailed research about related conservation stories, and a weighing up of the various attributes of the species in question. Obviously the physical charms are important but we hate to be totally lookist. We did use naked mole rats in one design, so we gained some credit there. Spiders, for example, despite being beautiful, and fascinating, are unlikely to make the cut, as we have to think of what people will tolerate on their walls!

Newton Paisley’s other main mission is to contribute to the preservation of critical wild habitats through our collaboration with World Land Trust. This wonderful charity has, for over 30 years, funded partner organisations around the world to create reserves and give permanent protection to habitats and wildlife. As Sir David Attenborough puts it: “The money that is given to the World Land Trust, in my estimation, has more effect on the wild world than almost anything else”. For every metre of Newton Paisley fabric or roll of our wallpaper sold, 100m2 of wild habitat are preserved through World Land Trust.

Biophilia is the innate human pull towards nature, towards affiliation with nature; and biophilic design uses this pull to create environments that reconnect us to the natural world. The term biophilic design makes most people think of a living wall, Scandinavian architecture that relies on natural building materials or sites like Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay. But in domestic interiors, the visual complexity of repeating patterns, especially those that honour natural forms, has a special and often undervalued role to play in biophilic design. Susy is writing a book about this subject and would love to hear from you if you have an interest in this subject, as a designer, researcher, or photographer.