Cool Summer Colours With Andrea Brand Designs

Andrea Brand recently returned from launching her Living Ritual collection at Maison et Objet in Paris. The Living Ritual Collection uses nature as an invocation to connect and create.

The collection includes the Ripples range, which comes in cool hues of blue and grey – perfect summer colours. The Ripples range was inspired by a fleeting pattern in the sand on an island beach – a moment in time, never to be repeated.

As with most of Andrea’s designs, the Ripples range was inspired by nature. A fleeting moment forever captured as inspired by Andrea’s time on a beach in Zanzibar.

Some of the designs are taken further with lino cut splashes of red and gold.

The colours in the Living Ritual collection were specifically chosen to enhance personal spaces on an energetic level.

Red connects us to our ancestors and represents energy,
passion and action.

Gold creates a sense of expansion, warmth and abundance.
Blue provides a connection to the heavens.

The deeper statement of the entire collection is about finding ways to connect with each other and nature again.

Nature conjures moments of abundance and inspiration that can be discovered if you are present in that serendipitous moment.

There is a focus on ritual – hence the collection’s name, Living Ritual. The ancient practise of ritual, even in its simplest form, creates a sense of connection, celebration, and gratitude.

In many cultures, traditional cloth was used in sacred rituals as an object of beauty to help evoke health, wealth, happiness and a sense of connection to nature, the self and the tribe.

The Ripples range reminds one of the Japanese dyeing technique shibori. Andrea’s method of practicing her art through communion with nature often transforms ancient or traditional cloth designs into contemporary contexts and designs. S

She describes it as a merging of her vision with what already exists in cultural heritages other than her own.