One of the most influential designers of the 50s and 60s was Lucienne Day, a British textile designer who’s bright, abstract patterns reflected the optimism of the 1951 Festival of Britain. 
It’s a look that influences designers to this day – bet you’ve got something in your home which owes a debt to her. 
Born Désirée Lucienne Lisbeth Dulcie Day RDI FCSD (née Conradi; 5 January 1917 – 30 January 2010) this brilliant designer was very influenced by contemporary European artists such as Kandinsky and Miro. She believed passionately that good design should be affordable, and put her inspiration from painting into her textiles, partly, as she later said “because I suppose I was very practical. I still am. I wanted the work I was doing to be seen by people and be used by people. They had been starved of interesting things for their homes in the war years, either textiles or furniture.” 
< Her talent was immediately spotted at her graduate show by Heal’s, beginning a long collaboration with the famous furniture store and other industrial clients such as BOAC. 
She retired from mass produced fabric design in the 1970s and worked on more personal pieces which she called tapestries.
For more see: http://www.robinandluciennedayfoundation.org
