Florence Broadhurst- 07.31.06
On the subject of wallpaper - here’s another contribution from our Aussie correspondent, Lucy Feagins.
Still on the topic of Melbourne Design Week (already a couple of weeks old now, sorry!), I was lucky enough to attend a seminar on the life and designs of Australian designer Florence Broadhurst. Speaking at the seminar were Helen O’Neill, author of the recently released Florence Broadhurst biography, Katherine Thomson, writer of Unfolding Florence - the soon to be released film about her extraordinary life, and David Lennie from Signature Prints.
Signature Prints is an Australian company that handprints beautiful fabric and wallpaper from a large library of different designs. Among this collection are the legendary designs of Florence Broadhurst, which Signature Prints’ CEO David Lennie stumbled across and purchased in 1989.
The life of Florence Broadhurst was as colourful and outrageous as her designs. She lived her life as multiple characters, and re-invented herself entirely - to the point of changing her name, nationality and history at various times throughout her life. In the 1920’s, for instance, she was Bobby Broadhurst, a promising young Australian singer and stage performer who toured South East Asia, and who later set up her own academy for the performing arts in Shanghai. In London not 10 years later, she was Madame Pellier, a French businesswoman running a dress salon on Bond st. It wasn’t until her 60’s that Florence Broadhurst established her revolutionary wallpaper business, which she ran successfully until her untimely death in 1977, at the age of 78.
