Interview with Canary Wharf-based designer Ann Louise Roswald: Print works

Shannon Denny talks to designer Ann Louise Roswald at her Old Street studio about creativity, loft living and Canary Wharf

Rack after rack of paper patterns occupy a whole room of Ann Louise Roswald’s Old Street studio, and a vast array of colourful samples from past and future collections are organised in soldierly fashion in another. “I always thought we’d have a little print studio somewhere, a cottage industry type thing,” the designer says from behind a steaming mug of tea. The appeal of her work, however, means that the cottage industry dream never stood a chance, not since her degree show at Central St Martins shoved her into the spotlight and gave the label a following around the world.

Raised in Yorkshire, Ann Louise’s grandmother was a painter, her Swedish dad made clogs and her mother worked as a dressmaker. “I come from a very creative home really,” she confides. From the age of four, she’d tell people she either wanted to be a fashion designer, an interior designer or a painter, and by the time she started her degree course she was still undecided.

“I came down to London to St Martins, and for some reason I’d read the guide wrong and went in to look at the fashion print course, rather than the fashion textiles course,” she reveals. “So I went on their tour – and I just fell in love with it.” She developed a distinctive style that she says subconsciously seemed to borrow from her heritage. “There is a Scandinavian look to a lot of my prints, but it was never intentional. I think I was just doing my own thing.”

Whatever the inspiration, her creations immediately resonated with observers. “I still thought I’d just do textiles. I never thought I’d actually go into the fashion side,” she remembers, “but then I got picked up from my degree show and Liberty said, ‘Will you do us a collection?’ I was like, ‘Oh ok, right ok!’ And I just naively set up straightaway.”

She established the label in partnership with her husband Nick Hartley – himself a printmaker – and orders and accolades started flowing in. At the 1998 fashion week debut, her collection was snapped up by Barneys in New York and London’s The Cross, while the British Fashion Council gave her the New Generation Award. Collaborations with Milan-based heavyweight Marni, high street fixture Oasis and illustrator Natasha Law followed, not to mention appearances at prestigious fashion weeks in New York and Singapore. With her clothing stocked internationally in over 100 boutiques and department stores, she’s extended her offering into interiors as well, from fabrics to floor coverings.

Interiors are a growing focus, possibly influenced by the family’s expanding portfolio of real estate. A cottage on the west coast of Ireland is a rural retreat complete with a print studio where Ann Louise plans to produce a line of wallpaper. Nick meanwhile is hard at work refurbishing another seaside home in Yorkshire, close to their families. And for the past 12 years, their domestic base has been a breathtaking canal-side loft near Canary Wharf.

The home is in the former factory that manufactured Spratt’s dog biscuits, and the couple’s considerable creative abilities were crucial in transforming it into something both habitable and stylish. “Oh my god, there weren’t even electrics in it,” Ann Louise says. “It was a new thing, this loft living. We moved in and we did it so quickly.” It took 46 days in fact, but in spite of the speedy execution the refurbishment has held up, even with the addition of two children.

The neighbourhood has proved a perfect one for toddlers too. “We jump on the DLR. My son is like, ‘Can we go to Canary Wharf? I want to go to Wagamama!’ So we go to Wagamama – a lot. I’ve tried to stop because it was sending me bankrupt. Before you know it you’ve spent I don’t know how much taking your three-year-old out. We’ve discovered Wahaca as well. Those places are just great for kids, and it’s good food.”

The waterfront is another source of entertainment. “We often walk along the canals to the park at Limehouse; we’re always walking along the canals.” And even when the kids aren’t in tow, this is where Ann Louise heads to clear her thoughts. A runner, she covers routes that explore all the twists and turns to St Katherine’s Dock. “I love it, I love it – especially if the sun’s gleaming on Canary Wharf. You just see that skyline… it’s pretty cool now isn’t it?”

For all this self-confessed appreciation for modernity in the form of slick cityscapes though, Ann Louise’s collection these days embody a decidedly old-school aesthetic. “It’s definitely old glamour. Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman – they’re my muses in a way. It’s just timeless. That’s the whole point – that people will get something and hopefully it will stay in their wardrobe, it won’t get slung out at the end of the season because it’s just a fashion fad.”

And in making clothes that people will want to wear again and again, the gratification on Ann Louise’s part increases. After so many years in the business, she admits she gets a thrill in spotting her garments when she’s out. “Oh it’s brilliant. We were just at Shoreditch House at the weekend. There was a girl in one of our coats. And of course my husband said, ‘My wife designed that!’ It depends on the situation, but my husband will kill me if I don’t say something to them,” she laughs. “It does make me smile and feel really good; it’s lovely.” Which is appropriate, because so are the clothes.

www.annlouiseroswald.com

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