| Caroline originally trained in
fashion design and designed clothes and scarves for a textile agent who
sold her fabrics internationally. In 1995, after graduating in Textiles
and Fine Art and designing embroidered textiles for home interiors, she
decided to return to her first love of painting and combine this with
embroidery. The collection featured pictures, cushions, lighting, and
wall hangings. She worked freelance for Liberty, John Lewis, and the
Japanese store Takashimaya. In 2002 she was selected on behalf of a
national British Craft promotion to travel and work across the East and
West Coast of Japan, exhibiting her work alongside the Princess Diana Althorpe Collection. Caroline has always
maintained a strong sense of global responsibility - all of her dyes are
natural and even the pastels she uses contain an antioxidant pigment
which reflects the light and enables colour fastness. She invests a
substantial amount of time and research into sourcing her materials and
many of them come from the developing world. Often the paper is produced
by people from rural communities who depend on this as their sole source
of income. "I feel passionately
that we should respect the industriousness, skill, and talent of these
people and not be so intent on saving on costs by using products which
are replicated in factories in Europe" - Caroline Hyde-Brown |