British Designers: Laura Ashley

Wallpaper by Laura Ashley

The Ashley Look

Portobello by Laura Ashley

Laura Ashley (1925-85) was a Welsh designer of flowery dress materials, wallpaper and clothes who started the company called Laura Ashley in the 1960s. Laura Ashley is a shop that sells women's clothes, as well as things for decorating the home, such as curtains, wallpaper, and material for covering chairs. Laura Ashley materials are usually made of cotton and have delicate patterns with small flowers , and are often similar to clothes worn by people who lived in the countryside in the past. 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 modelled her clothes. In 1985, on her 60th birthday, while she was visiting her children in the UK, Laura fell down the stairs and was taken to hospital in Coventry, West Midlands; she died 10 days later. She is buried in the churchyard of St John the Baptist, in Carno, Powys, Wales.