 Prints Charming: a Cinderella story
From the trim little shopfront to the true-hearted patterns to the candid manner of co-founders Kirsten Junor and Cath Derksema, the Prints Charming label is a study in easy-going confidence. And yet, this mild mannered Australian design house has crashed through into one of the globe’s busiest textile markets.
A range of light and lyrical textiles, developed in an old shed in a back street of Lilyfield, Sydney, Australia, by the most unassuming of design entrepreneurs, has been introduced to hundreds of thousands of die-hard American quilters and patchworkers.
The uninitiated may not immediately appreciate the size of this achievement, but in the US this crafty community, still something of a sub-culture here in Australia, is staggeringly BIG! Dozens of textile designers focus on the market, developing massive fan bases which deliver them household-name status in mainstream America. Prints Charming may be the new kids on the block, but they’ve got a big buddy to back them up: their designs have been produced by well respected New York design studio Free Spirit, home to some of the industry’s most high profile players.
It has been a big step up for a young business - a fairytale, you might say - but not entirely unexpected according to Cath.
“Australia’s got it all going on,” she says, theorising that the youth and originality of the local product is at last making an impression on a jaded international market. “I think (the Americans) really enjoyed the Prints Charming designs because they were different, they had their own personality, they were fresh. A lot of design out there is too laboured and ours is quite quick. It’s light and it’s bright and it’s whimsical and I think that’s what the mood requires at the moment.”
Cath’s reading of the situation is informed by long years in the textiles industry. She and Kirsten met in the early nineties when both women were working at fabric label John Kaldor’s: Kirsten in a commercial role, Cath as a designer. Inevitably they went their separate ways, Cath going on to co-found the hugely successful Art Park homewares label followed by a solo enterprise under the name Masterpeace and Kirsten making a sideways move into costume design.
But in 2003, a good fifteen years later, a chance encounter saw the two meet again. Almost instantly they fell upon the idea of combining their talents and going into business together. Within months they were designing patterns, printing fabrics, stitching up garments and homewares under the name Prints Charming and successfully selling their products to a growing network of retailers.
“Cath and I say this to each other all the time,” says Kirsten. “We feel that everything we had done until we met again was leading us to this. Everything we’d learnt along the way. Every exhibition we’d seen. Every drawing we’d done. We were meant to meet and this is what was meant to happen.”
The initial success was sudden and satisfying, but the couple were soon feeling the limitations of a business based on product alone. Then in late 2004 a chance visit to one of Australia’s leading patchworking shops led to a change in direction. Cath and Kirsten walked into the shop as anonymous browsers and walked out having secured an on-the-spot business deal to have Prints Charming fabrics being stocked in one of the quilting communities most respected outlets.
Just weeks later, the Prints Charming designs were a feature of the shop stand at the Sydney Craft & Quilt Show. By the end of the first day, their stock had sold out. It seemed that local stitchers simply couldn’t get enough of this new, fresh-faced entry to the quilting canon.
“We were printing at night and driving it down to the show the next morning,” says Kirsten recalling the desperate rush to provide the stall with enough material to satisfy new-found fans.
And so Prints Charming entered a new phase, selling bolts of Prints Charming fabric to patchwork and quilting stores nation-wide.
“It’s been great working with the patchworkers because they get the hand-madeness of the fabric,” says Kirsten. “They’re prepared to wait for the fabric because they know themselves how long it takes to make things.”
The American deal came about after the owner of a Melbourne outlet, , mentioned Prints Charming to a rep from Free Spirit’s local distributor, XLN Fabrics. By the time Kirsten and Cath had got in touch with the rep to follow up, he had already spoken to his counterparts in the US about the possibility of signing up the local label.
“It did surprise me how quickly they jumped on it,” admits a quietly delighted Cath, “- that they understood it so easily.”
Though Prints Charming designs are set to become a fixture of the patchwork and quilting communities here and abroad, Cath and Kirsten will continue to turn their textiles into functional wares like bags, dresses, pillow cases and lampshades.
“For me that whole thing hasn’t changed,” says Cath, musing on how the idea of enlivening the utilitarian through colour and pattern has been a feature of her career since the Kaldor days. “I really like the idea of making design more accessible to more people so that they can use it in their daily lives.”
“We both love what we do,” agrees Kirsten who likewise relishes waving a magic wand over domestic wares and transforming them into objects of folkloric charm. “We’re both absolutely passionate about this.”
Since then the girls have released their second range with Marcus Fabrics in NY (Distributed in Australia by XLN Fabrics 02 9621 3066). We are thrilled to be involved with Marcus Brothers Textiles and XLN, they have such a commitment to the history of quilting. What we do relies on traditional techniques to make contemporary quilts.
We don’t just see our fabrics as quilting fabrics either, with our contemporary designs and soft base cloth it is just as beautiful for clothing, soft furnishings, bags, just let your imagination go.
Prints Charming will be releasing their third range in November this year.
CONTACT DETAILS:
Retail Sales - Prints Charming
Website: www.printscharming.com.au
Email: info@printscharming.com.au
Phone: 0402 380 212
2 Young Street, Annandale, N.S.W.
Shop hours: 10am to 2pm Monday to Wednesday and Saturday
Wholesale Sales – XLN Fabrics
2 / 21 Binney Road, Kings Park, N.S.W. 2148 Phone: 02 9621 3066
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