Caroline Hyde-Brown

MEET Caroline Hyde-Brown

Caroline originally trained in fashion design and designed clothes and scarves for a textile agent who sold her fabrics internationally. In 1995, after graduating in Textiles and Fine Art and designing embroidered textiles for home interiors, she decided to return to her first love of painting and combine this with embroidery. The collection featured pictures, cushions, lighting, and wall hangings.

She worked freelance for Liberty, John Lewis, and the Japanese store Takashimaya. In 2002 she was selected on behalf of a national British Craft promotion to travel and work across the East and West Coast of Japan, exhibiting her work alongside the Princess Diana Althorpe Collection.

She has always maintained a strong sense of global responsibility – all of her dyes are natural and even the pastels she uses contain an antioxidant pigment which reflects the light and enables colour fastness. She invests a substantial amount of time and research into sourcing her materials and many of them come from the developing world. Often the paper is produced by people from rural communities who depend on this as their sole source of income.

“I feel passionately that we should respect the industriousness, skill, and talent of these people and not be so intent on saving on costs by using products which are replicated in factories in Europe”  Caroline Hyde-Brown