Above: Archway, screen-printed cotton furnishing fabric, made in 1968 (image via V&A)
Grimsby-born textile designer Eddie Squires (1940-1995) joined Warner & Sons Ltd (now Warner Fabrics) in 1963, a year after graduating from the Central School, London, and worked for the company for the next 30 years.
Becoming chief designer of printed textiles in 1971, progressing to associate director in 1980 and then full director from 1984 to 1993, it was Eddie Squires who was chiefly responsible for developing Warner’s reputation for combining high-quality traditional fabrics with fresh, new designs.
One of his best known designs was ‘Lunar Rocket’, created in 1969 to commemorate the moon landing. According to his obituary in The Independent newspaper on 8 March 1995:
“it [Lunar Rocket] was selected as the poster image for the company’s 100th anniversary exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1970, and has since become the image most requested from the company’s archive. The fabric itself hardly sold a metre, a fact which, far from detracting from the significance of this design, underscores the success of the partnership which was to develop between Squires and Warners, one based on a commitment to innovation within the context of tradition.”
The piece goes on to say:
“A superb eye for colour, an appreciation of excellence in drawing and an acute sense of developing design trends were reflected not only in the Warner range, but in the exclusive designs developed under Squires’s direction for international fabric companies and decorators.
He also promoted involvement, debate and appreciation for the creative process through his rapid-fire “bulletins” – ideas, assessments of exhibitions and reports of stimulating conversations scrawled over photographs or postcards and shot off to kindred spirits world-wide.”
The last sentence sounds just like a kind of pre-internet blogging/Facebook/Pinterest-type activity, and makes me think that Eddie Squires would have been an enthusiastic user of the technology we have at our disposal today to access and share so much creative inspiration from all over the world at the click of a mouse or swipe of a finger.
Above: Delores, from Warner’s ‘Theme of the Thirties’ Range, produced in 1964 (via V&A)
Below: Colourtron, a design from 1968 based on an integrated silicon circuit (via V&A)
Located in Braintree, Essex in the original Warner & Sons mill building, The Warner Textile Archive has an extensive and unique archive of more than 60,000 textiles, 10,000 paper designs, pattern books, record books, photographs and documentary material.
A permanent gallery exhibits some of the collection’s treasures, including the creations of renowned twentieth century designers such as Alec Hunter and Eddie Squires, and the opulent silks woven for royal coronations. There is also a calendar of temporary exhibitions throughout the year; on at the moment until the end of June is their Textile Festival 2013, two months of workshops, talks and events including regular guided tours of the archives.
Images: V&A Collection; Warner Textile Archive
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