The fortunes of the brand since then have been varied. Earlier this year, the company issued a profit warning. Like many British firms it has been hit by currency movements in the wake of the Brexit vote. This summer the company took another financial blow following charges made on the sale of its HQ in Singapore, slashing its profits. The couple were on an Italian holiday in when they hatched a plan to make similar scarves at home in Pimlico. Some might wonder why the company has not kept a firmer commercial hold on a market for nostalgia that it helped to invent.
How the florals and frills of Laura Ashley came to define an era. The designer displays her trademark dresses in a documentary, The Rise and Rise of Laura Ashley. Photograph: Rex. Later on, she expanded her business into designing and manufacturing clothes. She grew up to be a Strict Baptist and attended a chapel in Hebron. At the age of thirteen, she returned to Wales and joined Aberdare Secretarial School. After the second world war, she married Bernard Ashley, an engineer.
Both Bernard and Laura were perfect for each other in terms of their personal and professional lives. The two not only took care of their children but also gave their best in their work life. Their children were interested in the business. The children took up different jobs, such as designing the shops, doing photography for the company, and being part of the fashion design group. Bernard was the chairman and Laura managed the fabrics.
The family became successful, so much so, that they could afford a private plane, yacht and a chateau, town house and villa Contenta in Picardy, Brussels and Bahamas, respectively. Through her designs, books, and stores, she may be said to have served as an arbiter of fashion and life style. She was buried in Wales, where she was educated and grew up and where she established her world famous business of designing, manufacturing, and merchandising women's clothes and household items.
Her name had in her lifetime become synonymous with small, repetitive overall patterns; the use of natural fabrics; and a graceful simplicity in women's styles. Her dresses and blouses were noted for their Victorian-like high necks and full sleeves, the severity relieved by lace and ruffles. Particularly characteristic was her soft, floppy, wool felt hat with a broad flexible brim that could be worn down over the eyes and ears or pushed back so as to reveal the forehead.
It became common to speak of a "Laura Ashley look," a term applied to her garments, fabrics, and interior designs and even to the appearance of the young, expressionless, fresh-faced women who modeled her clothes. She married Bernard Ashley in On a kitchen table in their flat in the Pimlico section of London they designed placemats, scarves, tablecloths, aprons, and dresses by the silkscreen method.
They soon moved to a country home in Surrey and in the late s to Carno, Wales, now the headquarters of the firm's international operations. She concentrated on creating the designs and her husband on printing and merchandising them. Her life in the Welsh and English countryside, amidst farms and villages, clearly influenced the combination of Puritan function and Victorian nostalgia of her designs.
What you make as a designer is an expression of yourself. I love music and painting and I prefer life in the country.
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