John's Travels

Come see us at ABC Carpet and Home!

John Robshaw Textiles is thrilled to offer our complete home line and special, vintage finds at ABC Carpet and Home. We are located in the third floor linen department. Shop often, our vintage collection is almost constantly changing!

ABC Carpet and Home is located at:
888 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

Photography by Shanna Hutchins

Last Wednesday, John was the invited speaker at Apartment Therapy’s monthly offline design event.  Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, founder of www.apartmenttherapy.com gathered a dynamic crowd of young designers and design fans for an exciting and informative discussion with John. One lucky raffle winner received two crewel pillows as a parting gift!  Thanks to all who attended and to Maxwell and the team at Apartment Therapy. 

This might take a second to load, but its well worth it!

In all of our bumping around India, the only time I was ever scared of Eli was when I messed up my Thali lines three times while eating dinner. Eli smiled and spoke in a soft disarming voice behind his ex pro-football player bulk that could throw me down a fort rampart. This helped me focus.

I met Eli when he shot and interviewed me for an Elle Décor TV program a few years back. Eli pitched that we shoot this short clip for Blackberry in India. This sounded interesting since, as you can see from past blogs, Shiv and I have shot some shaky footage during my past travels. I think Eli did a superb job of stuffing India and me into a two minute segment. We had an action packed time jumping from workshops to local sights, markets, and finally to dinners in palace gardens. He only ignored my advice once as to where to eat on the road from Jaipur to Dehli, and he paid dearly for that!

Thank you Eli and Maddog Films for the great video!

John will be speaking at Apartment Therapy’s Design Meetup on Wednesday 1/13/10. Here are the details from apartmenttherapy.com…

• What: AT’s New York Design Meetup
• Guest: John Robshaw
• Members: 1,433 (rsvp here)
• When: 6:30-9pm, Wednesday, January 13
• Where: Knoll Showroom, 76 9th Avenue, Floor 11, NYC

This month we kick off the New Year with John Robshaw, the textile designer who uses traditional textile-making techniques for his popular collection of bedding, blankets and pillows — perfect for Bedroom Month! We’re also going to do one room cure for a volunteer with Group Apartment Therapy and provide time for lots of networking. Join us!

Let me give you some background on our catalogue shoots. It’s a Sisyphean task that I dump on Johil and the ladies twice a year, to promote our new line of bedding each spring and fall. We go on location to shoot the new beds and pillow stories, which means we pack up all of this stuff, haul it to some remote location, unpack the stuff, move stuff around to make room, shoot the stuff, then pack up the stuff and get it back to home base. That being said, it is a great time for me and the ladies to see all of the new line in a different setting and get a chance to mix it up in unexpected ways, either on beds or creating combinations we would not think of in the studio. This chaos works most of the time.

 
This Spring 2010 shoot we did at my house in Kent, Connecticut, which is good because the house is sparsely furnished so we can create new vignettes in different bedrooms by just adding new bed frames, side tables, and lamps. Sarah, our super clear graphic designer who used to work for David Byrne, politely told me not to junk up the shots. This makes sense since the beds have so much going on. They don’t need distractions or competition. Keeping this in mind, it was much easier for us to style.

Johil, Stephanie, and Laura came up on Sunday from the city on various trains, buses, and rickshaws. The ladies set up the beds on Sunday as we awaited Chris Temple, an old friend of mine from the East Village who is raising a brood upstate. Chris is an excellent picker who brought some cool bed frames and various props that he somehow anticipated we would need. We put him up for the night on one of the beds he brought. Erin Derby, our talented and hardworking photographer, arrived early the next day to start my painfully, stuffed to the gills shoot.

 The next day we started early. Laura, Johil, and Stephanie did a great job of swooshing, fluffing and kicking life into the beds, despite my frowning beside them trying to decide if the beds made sense or were too insane. The ladies that work for me are all a bit fanatical about their linens. I, being a somber print fellow, see things in flat planes. Luckily the sun cooperated and we had lovely light falling into each room. When night crashed down, Erin used her late-in-the-day tricks to keep the shoot going. Later in the night, Stephanie, our persistent Greek, whipped up some fantastic meals which made the whole shoot budget seem catered with a much larger number than I approved.

After two days of shooting inside, with Johil and Laura bouncing up stairs and in and out of bedrooms, we finally had some time outside to try some different shots. Laura did a fantastic job styling our new take on tabletop. I had to pull her and Erin off the shot once they covered it with 23 versions. I half-heartedly tried to throw some durries and curtains at the barn, which I love against the grey of the wood. We all frantically raked leaves out of the shot to make it look springy.

Thank you, ladies, for all of your hard work. Please don’t quit before the next shoot. Right after is ok.

Thank you to Anna Freedman of Aspen, Colorado for sending in these great photos of her three children, Haven, Ted E., and Avery, with our Primrose Bolster.

Berlin

For years I have had a gang of Berlin artists and writers who I have meant to visit and so when April Lamm, an art writer in Berlin invited me, I went. Saturday, the first day I arrived, April found me a friend’s bike and gave me an extensive smiling tour of her lovely city starting in Mitte to Museum Island.  On the way, April veered into the eerie Field of Stelae, which is very unsettling especially on a bike, as one cannot see what is coming around the corner. A little girl dashed out in a red coat.  We then rode through the endless Tiergarden to stop at a photographer’s cool modern house that Nina Pohl lives in designed by Arnie Jacobsen.  Two massive cats protected her. She walks them daily in the gardens outside her house. We proceeded of course to a beer garden in the park.  The day was sunny and cool, perfect for sitting in a beer garden drinking coffee wrapped in blankets they give you as the clouds skipped by and people came and left quietly on their bikes. Dinner of course April whipped up 15 assorted artist types to meet at a massive beer garden Prater Hall.  I was amazed that she could get that many people on short notice.  That is not possible in New York but it maybe helped that they are mostly artists with flexible schedules and attitudes which I enjoyed.  Franz Stauffenberg, her soul mate, joined us who is a well known visual artist and generally a cool fellow. Onward, the day did not end with dinner—we saddled our bikes off after many beers and sausages, which were lovely, down Karl Marx Allee through socialist housing complexes to a massive art opening.

Eva, a German filmmaker, agreed to be my escort on Sunday. I have known Eva for years since she had lived in Bangkok making films and commercials all over Asia and Europe quite an intriguing lady. I was quite excited to see her take on the city. First we stopped at a local flea market where April bought vintage Porsche sunglasses, which she can easily pull off, a large vintage sun chair, and she discovered a shiny red camping folding table. We headed back because we knew Franz was having an egg festival brunch for us, which was tasty. Eva and I then biked over to Pergamum museum which has an amazing Hellenistic broken friezes, and the Persian gate of Ishtar, not to mention the extensive Islamic collection of tiles, carpets and glass that Eva my guide kept asking the guards if she could buy. Next over to the Neue National Gallery designed by Mies Van der Roh where we agreed the best thing were the photos of Man Ray and Frieda Kahlo posing.  Then a quick coffee at Café Einstein where Eva assured me all of the politicians go. I guess she is a politician watcher?  Then a quiet dinner down the street in Mitte with the gang.  After dinner we were treated to Franz Stauffenberg boutique Schnapps which he just started to make at his old family estate with April as his willing assistant.  She claims they drank 5 shots each night for a week and were never hung over! Great stuff. I can’t wait to buy it in the States.

London

Next over to London to see our showroom in Chelsea Harbor, Tissus d’Helene. Unfortunately Helen was out of service. I managed to bother her charming showroom team, then back to see my Guru in Belsize Park for dinner Pip Rau. Her shop is a must if you are a textile freak like me.  Try to call ahead to have lunch with her next door at her favorite Afghan restaurant.

The next day was my museum day and of course it turned out to be a broody morning as I went for a windy jog along with well-behaved dogs seemingly walking themselves. I love the sleepy Victoria and Albert textile section. No one is around and you can pull exquisite textiles from all periods.  I then found watery drawings of Owen Jones which are quite fantastic and precious. He made that amazing book, The Grammar of Ornament. Across the street I found a Lebanese restaurant for a hit of lentil soup and hummus then went to the Saatchi Collection which had a show of great massive exuberant American paintings showing off all of their colors like the plumage of a peacock mating.  I was jealous since its difficult for me to print in so many colors. Last stop was the old Tate where I wanted to see the Turners which to me look like Twombly took a cutting and blew them up to make his messy elegant ruminations.

I was fortunate to have dinner with Giles Dunn who created the surf company Swami Surf. Funny, we worked on this years ago together since I was a print fellow and Giles is a graphic surfer; Giles kept the company going and is just starting to launch it in a larger way. We ate at his private club called Blacks where you deposit one pound when you come in the door and wander floors—from small sitting rooms to a little dining room with excellent food, perfect for a rainy London night.

Paris

Dropped my bag at a very small hotel in the Marais and met Antonia Hoogewerf of www.madaboutindia.com.  Antonia Hoogewerf lives half the year in Calcutta and the other half in Paris. We had lunch at Ma Bourgogne in the Place des Vosges which was lovely of course.  She then gave me a little tour of her neighborhood shops and we ran through the Carnavalet Museum and of course her favorite hot chocolate café.  I felt honored since she gives tours of Paris also for tourists and this was gratis!

Then to my showroom, Jules et Jim where by mistake I entered an upscale brothel near the showroom but they were kind enough to point me in the right direction. The showroom is lovely and sophisticated—it is Paris after all.  The ladies took me over to Colette which was crowded and silly with people in town for the fashion shows then to a small garden to sit and have a glass of champagne then to dinner with lots of wine. I discovered Vero’s husband is a master print maker so I am excited to visit him next time I am in Paris.

An old college pal from Holland came to meet me Roelof  for my Paris museum day.  First I had to go to see the Musee Du Quai Branly with its fantastic ethnic collections from around the world which an ethnic fellow like me lives for.  The museum is a dark and spooky environment there was even an exhibit on Tarzan. Next across the river to Musee Guimet to see their Khmer collection and take a break from the meat and cheese with a bowl of noodles in the restaurant in the museum then a long walk on the sunny day to the Place de Vosges and a dinner at a local café which is always good somehow in Paris even when they don’t look like much.

Recently we put our favorite fabrics on John Derian’s upholstered furniture, made by Cisco Brothers. It was exciting to see how handsome  our prints look on these vintage-inspired chairs and sofas. Bonus, we have a new place to sit during our company meetings.

Here is one quick shot from the New York Gift Show where Team Robshaw did a bang up job of setting up our booth and smiling until their gums bled. In this photo we find one of our star sales ladies, Stanley, stuck under a bed a day into the show.

In the Thursday August 20th issue of The New York Times, Interior designer & model India Hicks takes the Times shopping for beach-chic accessories. Ms. Hicks put John Robshaw’s vibrant Diggi Coral sheeting at the top of her shopping list.