The Queen of reinvention – the story of Florence B.

I came upon some wallpapers a few months ago, and fell madly in love. The designs were vibrant, wild, colorful and insanely cool.  It made me track down the designer, and to my delight I discovered an Australian woman way ahead of her time, Florence Broadhurst.

It turns out her life was almost more intriguing then her designs….She was the queen of reinvention, and actually didn’t start designing the famous wallpapers until the age of 60!  She was a dancer, an actress, and owned a million different businesses.  Then when her husband left her for a much younger woman, she started designing wallpapers.  She went under false names, wore giant fake eye lashes, tight gold lame outfits, and was a cougar 50 years before it was hip.  And to top it all off, she was brutally murdered in October 1977, at the age of 78, perhaps by some one who worked for her, but the Australian police has yet to solve her murder.

Intrigued yet?

Perhaps you’ve already heard of her.

Clearly I’m not the only one who finds her life fascinating.

There’s already a book on her. You can find it here.

And a movie about her, you can find it here. I’m definitely going to try to pick that up.

And take a look at her cool wallpapers and fabrics.

Apparently she painted all her wallpapers by hand first.

Wouldn’t you love an office desk in front of that wall paper?

Here are a bunch of her fabrics and wallpapers used in a room.

You can check out her collection, which has been restarted by Weego Home in Australia.

Kate Spade apparently was inspired by her, and created a collection with some of her prints.

I can’t wait to use some of her stuff in my upcoming projects.

Hope you’re having a nice Easter weekend!

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2 thoughts on “The Queen of reinvention – the story of Florence B.

  1. awesome to see this post! it was so much fun browsing the collection with you at the Washington Design Center a few weeks ago in the Rist showroom — I learn so much through talented designers like you!

  2. Love all of this! That black and white pattern in the last picture and previous pics sure looks like one of Kate Spade's latest designs — interesting.

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