Collection: Lulu Guinness X Bell Hutley

Folklore of the Forest 

Meeting Lulu last year on a late Autumn day in Stroud, for me, was a pretty profound moment. I’m lucky enough, in my work, to meet a lot of creatives but it's safe to say that I have never met anyone quite like Lulu. We found each other through instagram and realised we had similar tastes and interests. I was blown away by how her mind worked and how she saw things. She could make a masterpiece out of even the most mundane of objects. She sees the world in a different way and it has affected the way I look at things.

We realised pretty quickly we had a lot of similar interests, both inspired by folk art, nature, stories, art, interiors and more. I absorbed everything she said like a sponge and we decided to fuse our love for these subjects and create something together. 

Our aesthetic seemed to align so she let me come up with some initial ideas. With her household name of a brand in mind as well as mine, I was drawn to folklore. In particular Baba Yaga’s forbidden forest, which is represented in different stories from different cultures from many different times in History. 

I loved how misleading yet enticing Baba Yaga's forest could be, the beauty and the horrors that lay within the forbidden woods of the Brothers' grims tales. How tempting treasures can have a dangerous twist. We wanted to capture the light and the dark of the forest floor. We wanted the designs to be tempting to you but with a feeling of danger and excitement. 

Mushrooms are a big feature on the forest floor and throughout folklore. Designing this collection we wanted the characterful, playfulness of fungi and the forest floor to shine through with elements of darker, romantic tones.