"I'm more comfortable in a space that’s got colour, layers, texture, points of interest – that has an energy to it." We were delighted to chat to British textile designer Molly Mahon earlier this summer about block-printing, why our homes need pattern and colour, and working from her garden studio.

Q: Molly Mahon targets the real home, as opposed to the show home. What did you learn about the role of our homes during the pandemic? 

Ooo. Well, they became absolutely central to our being, didn’t they. They could never have been more important in their moment and I think it elevated our understanding that homes are so key to us as humans. Making our homes into somewhere we really wanted to be became incremental to surviving lockdown. Many of us started to look at our homes in different ways and realise how important it was to do all of those little jobs we never got round to doing. Homes became a point of interest and I think that's a really lovely thing. When we can visit people more, I think we're going to see so many more lovely, welcoming, and functioning homes than ever before.

Q: Block-printing is the earliest known printing method, going back thousands of years... yet it’s still used by you and others today in such a contemporary way. Why do you think it has proved such a resilient medium?

It’s got to be something about the way we as humans connect to creativity and how it feeds the soul, without sounding too deep! We’ve only very recently become industrialised - that is such a modern thing. Before industrialisation, the only way to print pretty cloth or whatever was by hand with wooden blocks. It wasn’t just about making decorative items and there’s so much more to it in block-printing. It delineated certain family lines, certain areas you lived in, certain ideas of your wealth and your place. Block-printing meant so much more in society before, whereas now I suppose it is used more decoratively.

For me, the idea that my children can just have anything they want digitally printed or machine printed, without any of the story or the soul or the real depth of design feels so shallow. I think we’re all seeing it that way. During lockdown, we needed to be able to make things with our hands and we want to be part of the finished product. I think that’s more true of block-printing than anything else.

Q: Your designs feel like a joyful tonic in this often stressful world. Would you describe your personal style as maximalist or not?

Yes I suppose so. For me, it seems like a natural way to surround myself, but many people would label it maximalist. I'm more comfortable in a space that’s got colour, layers, texture, has points of interest – has an energy to it. I don’t feel very comfortable nor at ease in a very simple clean white space. I think it’s also having three children and a dog! You just want to be able to relax and not see those marks and things that happen in everyday life. I love the idea that someone could come and visit me and just feel really at home and be able to sit down in any chair and not feel on edge or uncomfortable. I think pattern and colour really helps to create that feeling.

It's also really important for people to understand that when buying our block-printed fabric they are investing in something that has been made with thought, care, passion, time and integrity. Investing in well-made pieces is a sustainable choice, compared to lots of the 'throw-away' or short-life items that are readily available today.

Q: Sustainability is rightly the watchword in interiors at the moment. What kind of role does it play at Molly Mahon?

Yeah, we’re very thoughtful about that. We ask ourselves questions like, where has our cotton that has been woven into the cloth come from? What are we printing with? We have certainly never used any kind of toxic paints. They’re still printing in India a lot with a petrol-based dye, which is brilliant – very light fast, very rub-fast. But absolutely appalling for anyone who is near it doing the printing, or for the person with the fabric in their house.

We only use water-based paints and it’s something I’m really working on. In India, we use water-based paints that have got various good credibilities. In the UK - and I’m doing a lot more printing here - we’ve managed to create our own non-toxic water-based amazing paints to print with and they have Soil Association stamps of approval. It feels like such an exciting thing.

I think it's also really important for people to understand that when buying our block-printed fabric they are investing in something that has been made with thought, care, passion, time and integrity. Investing in well-made pieces is a sustainable choice, compared to lots of the 'throw-away' or short-life items that are readily available today. We love our clients who are really interested in the process and the back story.'

For us as a company we ask, are we being thoughtful? Are we doing this the best way possible? Does this make sense? Are we checking our mileage, where this is coming from and travelling to? I hope that if we do things in the best and most thoughtful way possible, we will be as sustainable as possible. We want to sell things that have a long life as well. We want that armchair to be covered and still be there until it's tattered in shreds years and years later and I think that is sustainable in itself.

Q: Do you enjoy working from your garden studio? How do you keep home and work life separate, if at all?

No, I don’t see them as separate entities at all. What I am doing was just my hobby that I did at the kitchen table. It was part of my life to be creative and it is part of me as a human being on this planet. It is something I’ve always done, it comes very naturally and I wouldn’t ever want to make it this separate entity.

So yeah, I’ve got my studio in the garden which is where Molly Mahon all began and grew from. That’s where I do all my initial drawings, carve my blocks and do my first prints. I still print bespoke orders for Charleston and places like that. When we grew as a company we needed a separate place to store our growing products and rolls of fabric, so we have another space we can walk to through the woods. That’s where the girls who work for me are based and my husband is there all the time. That’s where we store our product and ship our dispatches from.

It’s all connected and my absolute dream would be to have it all housed in one place. If I could tick all the boxes, I would have an old farmhouse that I would be decorating in a Bloomsbury style and I’d have barns in there. We could be block-printing, we could be shipping out orders, we could have visitors come and see our fabrics. It would all happen from one place.

I’ve always seen my business as quite a rural entity and it has that homely vibe to it, so it's a shame our office and home aren't connected. However, it is still very much one thing, under one umbrella. Rollo and I are married, we have a family, and we have this business which is very much part of our children’s lives.

For me it just felt right to put this amazing excitement I was getting from block-printing into a book. I feel so proud! It’s a very simple, light book but I think it explains why I do what I do and why block-printing is so important.

Q: I was actually going to ask… has your enthusiasm for printing rubbed off on your children?

Oh... yes. Well, you'd have to ask them separately! Certainly in lockdown we all did a lot of printing together and they loved it.

Lani, my eldest daughter, will say ‘oh I could go and print on that old pair of jeans and give them a new life.’ So I love the way she thinks about it and finds her place. They’ve all got bedrooms highly decorated from top to bottom in Molly Mahon block prints! So it’s very much just part of their life and it will be really interesting to see later on whether they continue it or whether they actually want to go and live in white boxes.

Again, it’s just what mum and dad do. It’s all intertwined and they come into the office sometimes, we don't separate it out. My elder daughter walks past our office on her way to school so she comes in every day. Often we’re like ‘Oh great! We need some help getting those samples into envelopes’ and she just gets involved. They’re so young, they don’t even think about it. I often hear them saying to other people, if Granny rings for example, ‘oh mum’s printing at the moment,’ so it’s just part of their language and being.

Q: What was the motivation behind your book, House of Print?

Yeah, I had this real sort of urge to put it down on paper. Even though we’re heading in a very digital direction, I’m a paper person, I love books. I love reading other people’s experiences. It has certainly fed me; I never did GCSE or A-Level art, but I have learned so much from reading books and poring over old Indian prints. I’d much rather read a book, if I’m honest, than scroll through websites. Also, I have like 40,000 images of my trips to India that have inspired me so much. I just wanted to have this paper version of my story out there. I often feel with websites you have to pare it back quite a lot – you can’t say ‘oh but then there was this, and then there was this…’

For me it just felt right to put this amazing excitement I was getting from block-printing into a book. I feel so proud! It's a very simple, light book but I think it explains why I do what I do and why block-printing is so important. I just want people to understand the process and to answer those who ask, 'why on earth do you use all of those wooden blocks, it's such a slow process when you could just print super fast on a machine?' I wanted to share the wonder of this incredible craft and share it in an accessible way. I'm never happier than when I'm sitting amongst my books - they are my guilty pleasure - so I hope that goes for others too and they choose to add House of Print to their shelves.

We need these little nuggets of creativity to balance our lives. For people to pick up these wooden blocks, apply a bit of paint, choose a colour they love and make something – it’s so great! I just love it.

Q: 40,000 images of India! Will you ever run out of designs? Is that possible?

Never! Never. Not possible. I just have them going round in my head all the time. Now that I’m a serious commercial business, I can’t just endlessly produce designs, either, everything is a bit more considered. A fabric collection is done as a collection, you can’t just spew them out whenever you fancy. Everything is kind of organised and controlled, which is probably a good thing. I’m building my next collection in my head already. Oh my goodness, we will never run out of patterns.

Q: What are you looking forward to as restrictions ease?

Well, I’m out on the road again already. But I'm most looking forward to resurrecting my workshops. I love offering those, I LOVE the joy that people get from coming on them. I just did two at the garden museum. They were really simple, sweet and well-organised with distancing and things. It just gave me a taste of how creating as a community is so important. I also offer an online workshop through Create Academy that you can do from your home. This is much more intensive and something that you really need time to kind of dig into.

When people arrive at my workshops they always feel a little bit intrepid and a little bit nervous. So many people say, ‘oh I won't be very good at this,' but by the end they are proudly showing their work. This reminds me that what I'm doing is so correct - we need these little nuggets of creativity to balance our lives. For people to pick up these wooden blocks, apply a paint colour they love and make something is so great! I just love it. I hope they go away feeling as inspired as I do when I’ve taken the courses. Getting that schedule back and getting back on the road is the most exciting thing for me at the moment.

Visit Molly's website: mollymahon.com.

Molly's love letter to block printing, House of Print, is available for purchase in all major bookshops.

Read all of our Q&As over on L-Shaped.