Loren, and Sarah
Testing out their own range of sleepwear (which is coming real soon)
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Choosing materials for an upcoming (secret squirrel) project
Tweaking details for their upcoming display at Auckland's INEX (interior design exhibition)
Lunch stop at little vietnamese joint, Try It Out - the girls often order this in if they're working late
(Try It Out? Best English-as-second-language name ever! How good does this look?)
Back in the studio - time for some emails and phone calls (Oh, and a baben portrait)
Planning the roll-out of the new collection
Wrapping and boxing orders for retailers and customers
Refining patterns for linen house slippers - coming soon!
Penney and Bennett art prints have hand-applied gold leaf
Penney and Bennett sleepwear - coming very, very soon...
End of the day - bread, red wine, good cheese - that's all the food groups.
Sarah Carson and Loren Marks first met at Whitecliffe College of Art & Design, where they collaborated on a few projects that combined their varying fine art practises. They found a shared passion for homeware, fabrics and furnishing, and during breaks between lectures they'd go to cafes and drink tea and talk about how they could turn their designs into beautiful textiles. After graduating, they each went into the workforce for a year, but kept meeting up for those chats over tea. The informal cuppas soon turned into more serious meetings on evenings and weekends, as they began to design and develop what would become
Penney and Bennett.
Today, Sarah and Loren are both 26 and Penney and Bennett is almost three! And they're about to launch their third collection, Guardian. Inspired by New Zealand's native forest, it's a moody, botanic direction, with a palette of deep greens and autumn shades.
Each surface pattern is created using a media mix of photography, painting and digital design, then printed onto metres of beautiful quality linen, cotton and silk, and transformed into cushions, pillowslips and bed linen, throws and more. Their range also includes table linen and large scale art prints.
Sarah and Loren live at opposite ends of Auckland, so sometimes before a big work day, they have a sleepover at one of their houses. It's a chance for them to make the most of the day, starting with some early morning exercise to get the brain humming. (On this day, they went for a walk around Auckland's Te Atatu Peninsula boardwalk). Days are spent getting orders of their dreamy printed textiles out to their customers and an expanding fam of retailers, and developing new collection prints and new products. Specifically, on the day Jonny visited them, Sarah and Loren were choosing materials for a whole new product line, checking the progress of their display stand for an interior design expo (INEX - happening in Auckland later this month), testing a new pattern for their linen house slippers, and finalising details of their new sleepwear range - a full range of pyjamas, which will come in plain linen, organic cotton and printed cotton.
Watch out for their new 2017 collection of cushions and throws, Guardian, in-stores very soon.
Explore the Penney and Bennett catalogue here:
Thank you Jonny!
