Deirdre Dyson Offers Beautiful Hand-Designed Carpets Hand-Knotted In Nepal

12 months ago

Deirdre Dyson is a Great British Brand 2024

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Deirdre Dyson Offers Beautiful Hand-Designed Carpets Hand-Knotted In Nepal

Deirdre Dyson is an entry in our Great British Brands 2024 book.

Deirdre Dyson: Great British Brand 2024

‘January 2023 was exciting. I’d started doing paintings of my colourful “Angles” collection to hang alongside the carpets and was invited to exhibit them at a Mayfair gallery. I sold quite a few, so it was a real success.

I was thrilled in July when we nailed Livingetc’s Best Collection Award – I’ve won awards for Best Carpet but never for Best Collection.

I’m not creating a new design for my 2024 collection. Instead, my new carpets are all about graded colour. As an artist, I love playing with colour and making it work three dimensionally, and I’ve flooded one colour into the next to arrive at a blend as seamlessly as possible. It takes hours, but the results are beautiful, and they have gorgeous, exotic names like Aquarelle or Topaz.

People often find it difficult selecting a design – the more choice, the harder it is. So, this is the solution, the client needs only to select two or more colours and we’ll grade them into each other to work perfectly with the client’s environment. We’re launching these in the UK in the spring and in Paris in January during Maison et Objet week.

We use technology to give the makers an absolutely accurate rendition of my designs, but we don’t use it to create anything. I do my original sketch to scale and once it’s scanned into the computer, we can manipulate it or change colours according to a client’s specific wishes. Technology is useful in that respect but even the changes involve a good understanding of design and colour.

Other than that, I can’t visualise needing technology for anything more because the whole point is that our carpets are hand-designed and handmade. Each one is entirely original, hand-knotted in wool and silk using the amazing skills of our Nepalese craftspeople.’

Deirdre Dyson

Five Proudest Moments

Being invited by the V&A to design carpets to accompany its exhibitions – International Arts & Crafts (2005), Modernism (2006) and The Golden Age of Couture (2007) and having one commissioned for the opening of the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art. All to illustrate modern methods of carpet design beside earlier works on display.
Publishing my book Walking on Art in 2015, documenting my journey from fine artist to carpet designer, and learning the design process and artisan manufacture of my carpets.
The opening of my King’s Road gallery in 2015, refurbished by architect Timothy Hatton.
Receiving orders for my carpets from members of the British Consulate.
The opening of the Paris gallery in Rue des Saints-Pères in 2020.

What I’ve Learnt

To trust myself and my own abilities.
To place total trust and confidence in my team, who are like my second family.
A close, personal relationship with each client makes for the best results and is mutually rewarding.