How William Morris's iconic designs hold up in today's world
June 2, 2025
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
POV – you’ve just walked into your granny’s living room, or perhaps the museum gift shop. This is the aesthetic inside Morris Mania, the latest exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. And admit it, when you see a William Morris design, these things come to mind: a bit outdated, a bit twee. And yet the fact that Morris’s patterns are still instantly recognisable, and that people choose to print them onto everything and anything, must surely be a testament to the man's resounding brilliance.
William Morris is a multi-faceted character. Yes, he created some very clever decorative designs, but that’s not all. He was a polymath, a designer, a craftsman, a writer and a socialist reformer. Living and working in the late 19th century, he deplored the pollution and the profusion of sub-standard products that came with the rise of industrial production methods. In contrast, his dream was to create beautiful, long-lasting, quality goods that would be readily available for everyone (rich and poor), yet he found that he was unable to achieve this ambition.
Even if the world has changed quite a bit since the late 19th century, these complex dynamics continue to operate within the world of design, fashion, and interiors to this day. We are still reckoning with the push and pull of quality vs. quantity in the production of household goods. This complex legacy is precisely what the exhibition’s curators are exploring in Morris Mania.
Throughout the exhibition, a simple timeline (in the form of wall panels) runs alongside the objects and introduces a rich web of ideas. These panels continually draw parallels between then and now regarding a plethora of different themes, including culture, class, copyright, authorship, mass production/consumption, environmental impact and so on. Here are some examples that struck a chord with me:
‘1876-1890. London's population grows by almost two million, the fastest rise in history. Sustained economic growth goes hand in hand with the rise of the middle class. Houses and the decorative arts are a focal point for conspicuous consumption.’
William Morris’s designs are deeply tied to notions of class. His company was created when the middle class emerged, thus making luxurious products readily available to a wider market, yet still unattainable for the working classes. Today, Morris’s designs are plastered on every object imaginable, from your brolly to your knickers, so that everyone can get their hands on a William Morris product. Meanwhile, the question of what defines class has blurred as the ties between consumption and class have morphed. In a world where much of the younger generation is unable to afford a place to live comfortably, yet are constantly bombarded by cheap products to buy, owning masses of stuff does not make you rich anymore.
‘1966. Seventy years after Morris's death, his work is no longer protected by copyright; anyone can now legally reproduce his designs.’ This is later followed by: ‘1967. Laura Ashley opened their first retail store in London and began using Morris patterns.’; ‘2021. OpenAI develops DALL-E, which can process and understand images enough to produce accurate captions, moving AI closer to understanding the visual world.’ and ‘2022. ChatGPT is launched, becoming the fastest-growing app of all time’, among other notes.'
With the loss of copyright over time, intellectual property and authorship can suddenly be appropriated by everyone and anyone, so the original creator’s successors (in this case the main company that continues to make wallpapers and fabrics from Morris’s designs; named Morris & Co.) lose control over the quality and quantity of production. In the exhibition, this idea is made visible by the proliferation of objects covered with Morris designs everywhere. Further down the timeline, authorship becomes a free-for-all when AI enters the scene. Using technology that would’ve been inconceivable in the late 19th century, AI can now make derivatives of Morris’s designs in seconds, thus allowing anyone to evolve or corrupt Morris’s designs.
‘1989. The term 'fast fashion' was first coined by the New York Times, reporting on the fashion brand Zara's claim that it took them ‘fifteen days to get a new idea into the stores. The World Wide Web is launched.’
Now that’s a big year… The internet was born a century after Morris’s death, and the world is about to become truly globalised. Our production methods are also globalised now. When you buy a pair of jeans, the places where the cotton is picked, turned into thread, woven into a textile, dyed, sewn into shape and sold are all disparate. And so many of our clothes are poorly made, quickly ending up in landfills, in the desert or on the beach somewhere across the world. The social and environmental damage is off the scale. William Morris would be horrified, but I imagine he’d also be thrilled to witness and partake in the plethora of small-scale, from-the-ground-up innovations emerging everywhere to combat this scourge.
Of course, all these themes are intricately interwoven, and this exhibition invites us to consider a range of open-ended questions about the values we associate with the things we choose to surround ourselves with. The exhibition curators approach this subject with refreshing honesty, serving lots of self-reflection with light touches of self-deprecation here and there (because this is a very British subject, after all). This is a welcome endeavour.
Morris Mania is a small space that packs a punch. Visiting this show could create a sense of overwhelm, but instead, it left me thinking deeply about William Morris's complex legacy. It is the very fact that the man and his work manage to hold all these contradictions that always keeps me coming back for more.
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