As part of our Re:New program, we are excited to debut a collection of relaxed shirts, trousers and dressing gowns reimagined in collaboration with designer and artist Lisa King using her collection of archival Batik textiles. Here, you can learn more about Lisa, the inspiration behind the collaboration and where you can explore the collection.

Lisa King is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer whose dynamic visual work draws on her personal experience, a love of nature and her British, Thai and Indonesian heritage to tell stories through print design. She takes an investigative approach to print using experimental processes; encompassing photography, abstract drawing, painting, film, screen and digital print design and batik to convey an emotional response.

A graduate of Textiles from Central St. Martins, with her own practice founded in 2013, King’s eponymous scarf collections have been sold in stores across the world since 2013 including Harvey Nichols and Fortnum & Mason, and her ready-to-wear collections garner a strong following particularly in Japan, while commission clients include Nike, The Savoy, and Prada. Since 2019 her prints have transitioned into larger scale projects, commissions and collaborations spanning art, fashion, retail and event design, interiors, and costume.

Featured by Vogue Thailand, FT How to spend it, and Nowness.com, King also shares her alternative approach to print design through regular workshops where she demonstrates the unique methods of her signature style.

In the lead-up to Craft Week, we sat down with Lisa to ask a few questions about Batik textiles, sustainability and her creative ethos.

A: I am Bangkok-born, London-based, a lover of print and pattern, a designer and an artist by trade. I’ve had a brand for 12 years but for the last five years or so have moved into more of an art practice.

A: The things that inspire me have moved me emotionally, and I try to evoke the same response in my own work. The art and design is as much in the process as is the finished result, and at times more important to me. I try to tell stories through my art, and in turn invite people to identify their own in mine.

A: I feel that batik fabric was present in my life for as far back as I can remember; it adorned our sofas, my grandmother’s dresses, the cushions and tablecloths we gathered around when growing up in Thailand. My late mother was Indonesian, and was passionate about preserving her native identity despite living in Thailand for 45 years. She took me to my first batik workshops as a child, and typically it wasn’t until she’d passed that I truly came to appreciate the craft and wanted to adopt it into my practice.

A: Working with Tom Leeper and N&L has really given me the chance to bring my mother’s batik archive to life, reworking vintage sarongs into new British tailoring, showing it in front of a new audience, and in turn inspiring a new generation to value slow craft and hand made, unique textiles and fashion.

A: I grew up between Thailand and the UK, two very different places both rich in culture and colour. My family home in Railei Beach is a Balinese-style house on a southern Thai beach, full of objects, carvings, textiles and shells collected by my mother. At the same time if I need inspiration in London I’ll go to a gallery or museum, or I’ll go for a dance with Hustling London.

A: If travelling, I’ll get a recommendation from a friend for a walk, a museum and some local food in the area. I pack one of my flower t-shirts and some batik loungewear. But to be honest, it’s rare that I get to travel on my own these days, so as long as I have my son and husband with me, that feels like home.