Darcy Jennings
I am a Textile Designer, with a key interest to incorporate a variety of media into my designs, but a particular passion for both print and weave design.
This is a soft dining and picnic collection inspired by the evenings spent at Studland Bay, Dorset in our families beach hut growing up and the positive impact sharing meals on the dunes had on building a community and creating connections with one another.
The collection is inspired by my family’s beach hut which has been passed down through the family for over 50 years, with significant ties to my childhood. It’s become a powerful symbol of belonging, reflecting and the comforting presence of the community as a gathering place for friends and family. Each memory an inspiration to the weaves and motifs within the collection. Every visit down to the beach hut thrives with memories, each familiar sight full of colours and texture, filled with nostalgia embracing the togetherness and joy. Encapsulating the memories of meals shared across the community of huts, laughter over the dunes, children growing up and loved ones passing on – where people could share to support through change. It stands as a place for us to be bought together, ensuring continuity and for people to never be alone through its familiar presence and emotional anchor allowing memories to live on.
Filling the hut with friends and food has always been the goal at the beach. The meals shared at the hut offer the deepest connections to the memories; food bought people closer, offering time to reflect and embrace over the day spent at the beach. Enduring the connections between each other over meals, providing warmth and support connected to the hut.
Inspired by this, the final designs are a collection of dining furnishings intended to be used for shared dinners, encouraging similar connections over meals enduring belonging.
The soft dining and picnic collection invite comfort and warmth of these memories into textile furnishings, embracing a sensory reminder which holds space for memory, community and the sense of belonging.
Illustrations developed from the first hand photos, inspiring the collections development