Newton Paisley was accepted to launch at Decorex in September 2016, the premier interior design event in the United Kingdom. I’ve been going to this show just as a fan for many years, and I had a piece of hand-painted furniture exhibited there two years ago. I was very excited to be launching my first collection of fabrics as Newton Paisley.

Eugenie Barrell of Cognoscentis and I thoroughly enjoyed our time at stand G22. Highlights were meeting so many fabulous and enthusiastic people like the people from Fine Cell work, Hamilton Weston and Peter Hunt who loved my work and tweeted that I was his “favourite discovery from Decorex”. Lowlights were only when: 1.) my friend Kate Coleman gave me a Disney Frozen carrier bag which I had to carry all the way through the Syon Park past all of the glamorous exhibitors and visitors and 2.) when my vegetarian friend Sarah, who was helping me on my stand on the final day, bit into what she thought was a marmalade and peanut butter sandwich but which turned out also to contain, wholly unexpectedly, quite a lot of bacon. A group of keen Japanese visitors arrived at the stand just in that moment and she had no suitable means for ejecting the offending mouthful.