Bethan
Gray, an award winning Welsh designer, has an extraordinary background. Her
family hails from an ancient Rajasthani clan that over centuries migrated
across Arabia and Persia before settling in the Celtic heartland of Wales. It’s
a heritage that weaves a rich pattern of influences and inspirations, which
draw on craft traditions of both East and West. Bethan’s
signature style reveals a love of detail, tactile textures, and luxurious
materials such as semi-precious stones, marble, wood, and hand-tooled leather.
Intricate patterns of light and dark, texture, purity of line, clarity, harmony
and a connoisseur’s eye for detail define her highly original style. Her skill
in combining cutting edge design technology with a deep knowledge of the values
of traditional craftsmanship resonates across cultures.
Her travels in India,
Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and South America were fuelled by her
love for and curiosity about their arts. Her London
home is a treasure trove of objects brought back and lovingly displayed—sources
of inspiration and pleasure. In her years as a designer she has worked closely
with craftspeople from all over the world, developing her eye for the rare and
wonderful. Her sense
of pattern, colour and form are at the heart of everything she designs. The
elegance and harmony of her work, created through a combination of cutting edge
design technology and a deep knowledge of traditional craftsmanship, gives it a
timeless quality that transcends trend. Following
her graduation from De Montfort, with a degree in Three Dimensional Design,
Bethan was discovered by Tom Dixon in 1998 when he awarded her the prestigious
New Designers Prize.
This led to a role at Habitat, where she became Design
Director, giving her a unique insight into global retail. She left to establish
her own eponymous studio in 2008, to broaden her client base and work with the
luxury materials that she was so passionate about.Given
Bethan’s warm and inclusive personality, collaboration is at the core of her
practice. She designs best-selling collections and high-profile pieces for
global retailers and brands, and her exquisite Private Collections can be seen
in some of the world’s most prestigious stores, including Lane Crawford,
Liberty and Harrods. She is featured extensively in the media and has exhibited in London,
Milan, Paris and New York. Her work was recently recognised with the
prestigious award of ‘Best British Designer’ in 2013/14.