ABOUT/
She’s the bubbly Welsh beauty with a weakness for handbags, shoes and Perspex.
Laura Wellington, creative director of Laura Wellington Designs – Yorkshire’s most innovative furniture and lighting manufacturer.
If she wasn’t a designer, she’d be a sideboard – a “classic piece of design that is functional, useful and pretty to look at.” It’s this innate passion for furniture that underpins all of her work. “I literally can trawl around design exhibitions and shops for hours and still get as excited about the first amazing thing I saw in the morning to the last thing in the day!”
Laura’s ethos is centred on sustainability – ‘quelle surprise, another designer jumping onto the eco bandwagon’ you might think. The difference with Laura is that she comes from the ‘Nu-school’ of eco design, one where sustainability and style collide almost organically.
“Sustainability is evolving, it’s not seen as the old “Heath Robinson” style anymore. It’s become fashionable. Technologies, materials and the attitude towards sustainable design are changing with the times” she adds.
However, she’s a realist and openly admits that compromises are an essential aspect of the design process:
“It’s hard to be completely sustainable in what you do. I do mix virgin materials with old pieces but I do my utmost to ensure they’ve come from sustainable sources; sometimes when revamping an old piece of furniture new has to be added to achieve a highly styled design feel.”
Take for example Chipper – her effortlessly cool seating range made from recycled wooden pallets and covered in fresh, bright fabrics. The line is a testament to Laura’s ethos; proving that she’s not just some “eco hippy” sticking pieces of junk together with cow manure.
So, how does her addiction to Perspex fit under the sustainability umbrella?
“I have a very good connection with the local plastic manufacturers whereby I basically go and raid their scrap bins before they get shipped out. But they are clean bins!” she adds hastily.
Laura is due to be plummeted into the limelight hailed as ‘Britain’s Next Big Thing’, thanks to the BBC2 TV programme presented by Theo Paphitis which airs from the 12th April 2011. The programme brings to life the story of how Laura went from design graduate to designer for leading retailer Habitat, by the age of 25.
The 17th of March marked the date, exactly 1 year on from when she was pitching to Habitats top buyers, and she found out she had been chosen as a young designer they wished to showcase, with her innovative “Hula” pendant light. The BBC show tracks the process of Laura pitching to Habitat Creative director Theo Williams and Head of Range Jonathan Crawley, through to working with the Habitat design team with all the planning and manufacturing to get the product into store.
She’s no one trick pony either, last year she launched Stampgeek; a line of trilby hats covered in postage stamps which caught the attention of Kiss Fm’s Kaiser Saucy – the outlandish frontman of electro duo The Loose Cannons. Although, she isn’t planning to conquer Vogue anytime soon:
“I have no patience with a sewing machine- but I could see myself getting into the accessories side of things.” Hardly surprising that she then launches into monologue over the joys of shoes and handbags.
Design is a notoriously cut-throat business, with so much emerging talent; so does Laura ever get phased by it all?
“There’ve been many times when I’ve thought ‘why am I doing this nobody’s interested’ but that’s just for two seconds and then I fall back in love with what I do, it’s definitely a labour of love and you have to be truly inspired by the things that you work with.”
Talking to Laura, it’s easy to forget that this is a young designer fresh out of University, and not the creative director of a fully established multi-national brand. This however looks set to change in 2011. With her lighting design hitting the Habitat stores and plans for a full scale PR operation– the high street better watch its back. And its bins.