The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - The Telegraph Magazine
House style
Artists and designers creating gorgeous gifts for little ones
The artists taking children’s decor to new heights
FOR THOSE ON THE HUNT for unusual and design-led presents for children, new interiors brand Sessions & Co should hit the style spot. The company was launched this year by art curator and RCA graduate Kate Sessions with her husband Tom, when they were looking for child-friendly but aesthetically pleasing ways to furnish their home in east London following the arrival of their two young sons. The result is a collection of prints, wall hangings, quilts and cushions with illustrative motifs that would look charming in a nursery or playroom, but also wouldn’t be out of place in a more grown-up space.
Printmaking is in Sessions’ blood: her great-grandfather established printing factory Sessions of York in the early 1900s, where he also created a nature reserve on the land surrounding it to help protect native kingfishers and woodpeckers, while boosting workers’ well-being. Nature is likewise the theme of Sessions’ first collection, for which she has collaborated with three British artists on handcrafted products made in the UK.
Illustrator Mark Hearld has created a new design, Bird Tree, populated by an owl, woodpeckers and thrushes, and used on a quilt that can double as a playmat or wall hanging, plus a collection of cushions with contrast piping. Textile designer Caitlin Hinshelwood has produced a fabric frieze, screen-printed on to linen and inspired by motifs from the British garden such as tools, sheds, plants and birds. And artist Emily Sutton has recreated a Victorian school chart, depicting the letters of the alphabet with characterful animals, birds and more.
A second source of nature-inspired designs, particularly endangered animals, is Annabel Pope, the subject of a solo exhibition at the Osborne Studio Gallery in London (osg.uk.com), from Wednesday until 22 December. Her whimsical drawings of athletic beasts – ice-skating elephants, cycling rhinos and frollicking hares among them – come as prints or lampshades, either in black and white or a choice of bright colours, and can also be ordered online.