textile designer — Arren Williams

As Toronto is about to move into Phase 2, everyone and their best friend seems intent on hitting the barbershops and hairdressers. Me? I’m happy to keep on rocking my homemade haircut for a while longer.

How are things feeling in your part of the world?

Cheers, Arren

I popped by Augustus Jones this week on the hunt for garden furniture for a client, and took the chance for a masked chinwag with owner Cliff Smith.

I first met Cliff, his wife Yasmin and daughter Amanda years back, when we shot their Toronto home for Flare magazine. Back then Cliff told me about their country property, an old canning factory, that they were stripping back to bare bones. Fast forward to earlier this year, when the house was featured in Objekt magazine looking all sorts of cool, take a gander here.

While at Augustus Jones I was taken by a chair from Tolix. Nope, not the classic and oft copied A Chair from 1925. Instead it’s the Patrick Norguet designed T14 Chair, which feels fresher and more contemporary. A modern classic, if you will. Oh, and if you’re wondering, it sits like a dream, perfect for a long, lazy afternoon with sangria.

After discovering the work of artisan Amina Haswell on Insta, I’ve come to the understanding that my life is incomplete without a handmade broom.

Based in Manitoba, Haswell makes her brooms, brushes and whisks (small handheld sweeper-uppers) using a mix of corn broom grown on her property, plus some sourced from further afield. You can order her work, tied in your choice of coloured cord - Twenty different tints to be exact, including a rather jazzy rainbow dipped number.

Check out the full Prairie Breeze collection here, or shop in person at an upcoming Third + Bird urban market in Winnipeg.

Image: Whisks and Brushes in Rainbow Cord

I’m an absolute fiend when it comes to prints and patterns, so it’s obvious that London-based designer Eva Sonaike’s textiles give me major ooh-ooh-ah’s.

Sonaike’s ‘Bringing Colour to Life’ ethos definitely comes into play in the collection’s vibrant West-African aesthetic - Shrinking violets and nervous nellies need not apply. Get some yardage and get happy. What are you waiting for?

Peruse the complete Eva Sonaike collection of fabrics, cushions, lampshades and more here.

Today, I’m choosing to focus on the good news out of the US, with the Supreme Court finally ruling that the language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

And, we’ve been listening to a great Spotify playlist - Transcend - that features transgender, non-binary and gender-fluid artists and is well worth listening to, on repeat.

Cheers, Arren

“Fuck greige,” so says Seana Freeman, who sees the inoffensive non-colour as a cop-out when describing her punchy fuchsia home office. This tint makes a statement, just like Freeman when describing how embracing colour can be a political act,

“People of color have a different relationship with color. Its part of our cultural heritage! Por ejemplo, long before it was trending, black women have been wearing vibrant clothes, nails & hair. Hues like magenta pop against our skin. But often, especially if we are climbing the career ladder, we leave our magenta at home and well... wear greige.”

Read the rest here on Freeman’s Insta, the Geeky Glamohenian, which follows her take on style and the decorating of her art-filled home in North Carolina. Oh, and speaking of art, the standout piece in this shot is Leopard Coat by artist, Kendra Dandy. To see the rest of her space, pop over here to HGTV.

This Toronto home, by architect Tura Cousins Wilson of Ursa architecture and design studio, also embraces colour. This time though, in memory of the architect’s formidable grandmother, Violeta. The Jamaican-born matriarch loved the bright yellow of her country’s flag, so he paid tribute to her with the front porch painted in an eye-popping hue.

While the exterior stays true to its Edwardian roots, inside things are decidedly light, bright, airy and modern. I’m all about that double height living space. Plus, I have to mention the vividly colourful portrait by artist Rajni Perera of Violeta watching the to-ing and fro-ing beneath, all while holding a machete.

And the bathrooms! Sleek and simple, and so smart, with black grout creating a grid pattern with square white tiles. See the rest of Granny’s House here in Ursa’s portfolio.

Tura Cousins Wilson is a founding member of BAIDA, the Black Architects + Interior Designers Association of Canada.

Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Destiny Seymour in an Anishinaabe interior designer who also makes a line of handmade goods for the home called Indigo Arrows. Indigenous pottery and bone tool patterns uncovered in Manitoban archeological digs inspire Seymour’s textile designs, which are printed on linen and made up into cushions, quilts and napkins.

Her Copper Arrows lumbar pillows are a fave of mine, but I totally love the made to order Drum Stools. Upholstered in wool blankets, with tops and tails in maple, the stools come in three sizes. Shop the full Indigo Arrows collection here.

Photo: Copper Arrows pillows and Grandmother Moon Quilts

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Colour is a political statement

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