Emily Carter is an award-winning British designer specialising in hand-illustrated silk accessories and interiors. The collections are inspired by a lifelong interest in the natural world, where each design tells its own unique and individual story. Vault Editions sat down with Emily to talk about why the natural world inspires her work, the importance of manufacturing locally, her design process and more. Let’s go!
Emily Carter in the studio
Emily Carter in the studio
1. Hey Emily, thanks for speaking to us today. To begin, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your work?
I’m Emily, a print designer and illustrator, and my work is hand-drawn with ink pen and paper and inspired by my lifelong interest in the natural world. I translate my prints into silk scarves, accessories and other textiles, which are proudly made here in the UK. Alongside the brand, I also work as a scientific illustrator, specialising predominantly in insects and birds.
I’ve always been fascinated by wildlife and botanicals, which is where the majority of my inspiration comes from. I spent half of my life wanting to be a palaeontologist, following many years spent fossil hunting along the Jurassic Coast. I also considered becoming a zoologist or entomologist due to my fascination with insects, but eventually ended up following my creativity in the hope that I could find a way to incorporate my interest in science and nature into my artwork.
Tropical Toucan illustration by Emily Carter
2. You’ve just unveiled your spring collection, which looks amazing. What was the core inspiration this season, and what kind of feeling did you want to evoke for those wearing these pieces?
This season was inspired by water wildlife and the beautiful river at the end of my garden. I wanted to use a softer colour palette than usual with lots of creams, greys and mossy greens. There’s lots of British wildlife inspiration in these designs, including herons, frogs, mayflies and damselflies, along with orchard fruits, apples and pear trees. It was also inspired by time spent rowing along the River Thames, where these creatures can surprisingly be found in both rural areas and in the heart of the city. I also included corresponding illustration plates with the collection, inspired by Maria Sibylla Merians’ artwork – I wanted to submit the collection as more of an exhibition of art pieces, as opposed to purely textiles.
The Pear Tree by Emily Carter
3. Can you talk us through the design process for some of your favourite scarf designs? How do you decide what the narrative of the piece will be?
Every design is derived from a memory or something personal, but The Tulip Still Life Scarf I’m particularly fond of. It was inspired by 19th-century Dutch flower paintings, and the colour palette is one I come back to a lot: salmon pinks, corals, khaki greens, and golds. The bouquet brings together flowers including striped tulips, bleeding hearts, bluebells and lily of the valley. There are two ruby-throated hummingbirds flying through the composition, my most favourite birds, as well as tropical butterflies, the African giant swallowtail and a saw-toothed stag beetle.
There are also subtle narratives woven into this design, which I often tend to include in my work. The striped milk snake paired with the peaches is a quiet reference to temptation, while the nautilus alludes to the passing of time, and there are lots of smaller details too - butterflies, bees, shells - which you don’t necessarily notice straight away. I find the more you look at this design, the more different things you begin to see.
The Tulip Still Life Scarf by Emily Carter
The Wild Flower Scarf is the all-time best-selling design. I was fortunate to grow up with the most beautiful garden full of foxgloves, snowdrops, daffodils, dahlias, etc. This design brings together my favourite florals plus brambles and blackberries, along with wasps and swallowtail butterflies. Foxgloves are the main feature in this design, and interestingly, while they’re beautiful flowers, they’re actually highly toxic, similar to deadly nightshade.
This was the final design I created last-minute for this collection, which I was pitching to Liberty at the time. I put it in the lookbook as a backup, and it has unexpectedly become my best-selling design of all time. I still, after so many years of doing this, can’t always tell which is going to work, or which is going to sell, and I quite like that it still offers a bit of mystery to me in that way.
Wild Flower Scarf by Emily Carter
Wild Flower Scarf by Emily Carter
4. Your products are stocked at Liberty and Harvey Nichols. How did it feel the first time you saw your scarves hanging in these iconic stores?
I’ll never forget the day I saw my products in Liberty, I had been visiting the store all my life, and I actually used to work in there selling scarves before I launched the brand, so it was beyond surreal seeing my stand between Alexander McQueen and Etro. That store meant a lot to me as my childhood home was full of Liberty fabrics and prints, which I imagine is part of the reason I ended up becoming a textiles designer. I also went all the way to Hong Kong to see my scarves in the beautiful Harvey Nichols store there, another trip and moment in my career that I’ll never forget.
The British Garden Scarf by Emily Carter
4. You’ve maintained a 100% British-made supply chain for your scarves. In an industry where many brands eventually move production abroad to scale, why has staying local remained a non-negotiable for you?
The values haven’t changed since I started the brand, it’s always been centred around hand-craft, local production with inspiration derived from nature. Britain has a longstanding heritage of textile production, and there are still mills here producing some of the finest silk printing in the world. Being able to work closely with my factories in Macclesfield is important to me, as well as personally knowing the teams who make my products. I also think customers value that transparency. Many of our customers, particularly in the US and here in the UK, are drawn to the fact that the manufacturing process is done locally, from the illustration through to the printing and finishing. It builds trust, and creates a sense of integrity for the products.
The Pluto and Venus Scarf by Emily Carter
5. You're based in London but inspired by the natural world. How do you find a sense of nature and inspiration while living and working in a major city?
London is far greener than people often realise, so much so that I rarely miss the countryside, though I still regularly go back for inspiration. I live very close to the river, and there’s a surprising amount of wildlife along the Thames and parks in the city. Nearby there’s a reservoir where I’ve seen some of my favourite insects including stag beetles, lime hawk moths and a giant gypsy moth caterpillar, which I have never seen before in the UK. It’s amazing to see species for the first time in the middle of a city. I also row on the river, which gives you a completely different perspective of London. Early in the morning, the river is very quiet, and you see herons, swans and all sorts of unexpected insects and birds – I’ve even seen a solitary seal once before, which is quite well known among the local community to pop up from time to time.
Hawk Moths by Emily Carter
6. We love seeing your drawing process videos on Instagram, and I read online you use Rotring pens you've had since you were 16, are they still in use? What other tools do you use specifically, and are you looking to experiment with any new equipment or techniques?
For many years, I used Rotring architectural pens - I’ve had some of them since I was 16. They produce an incredibly precise line, which is perfect for detailed illustration, and I loved the quality and depth of the ink. The only downside is that they have a tendency to leak, which can be quite disastrous when you’ve spent hours on a drawing. After ruining far too many pieces of work, I regrettably eventually moved to fine liners, which are much more forgiving.
I still work primarily with pen and paper, which is a traditional and time-consuming process, but I find it so therapeutic. I’m always trying to build upon my skills and practice, and this year, I'm working on portraiture and how to do engraving-style drawing inspired by Victorian techniques. I’m also returning to painting, with the hope of expanding into more conceptual work, exhibitions and installations in the coming years.
Insect illustrations by Emily Carter
7. You have illustrated the very popular Insectarium book and also worked with Kew Gardens. How do you navigate the line between artistic expression and the technical accuracy required for these projects? Is there ever a conflict between the 'artist' and the 'illustrator'?
The entomologists I had the pleasure of working with for Insectarium were frequently critiquing my drawings, which was necessary to ensure the scientific accuracy of the book, and rather amusingly, the main comment I received over the weeks of revisions was that my bugs weren’t hairy enough, and that the antennae were too curly. This resulted in me spending weeks drawing tiny little hairs onto each of my ants, wasps and beetles.
Similar experience when illustrating the Kew Gardens project, and various works I have done for the Woodland Trust and The Royal Entomological Society, it’s a subtle balance of a little stylisation mixed with scientific accuracy.
I do think there’s always room for artistic expression. It’s why we often connect more with illustrated books than with photographs. An illustration offers more than just a representation of a creature; it’s emotive and invites a more personal connection.
I do enjoy the accuracy in what I draw, and in the midst of the endless details and layers of my prints, most of my work is scientifically and anatomically correct. A toad looks very different from a frog, a damselfly from a dragonfly, and for me, it’s important to make those distinctions clear whilst still adding some creative expression. I also try not to mix habitats, and instead research birds, insects and animals native to the theme I’m illustrating.
I have never taken the time to explore drawing in a purely abstract way, but perhaps this is something to explore later down the line.
Dragonflies and Damselflies II, by Emily Carter
8. Can you tell us about what’s next for you - are there new projects you're launching soon, or new subjects you are looking to explore?
Creatively, I’m always exploring new mediums and ideas. Off the back of one of my upcoming collaborations, which unfortunately I can’t reveal just yet, I’ve been studying John James Audubon’s Birds of America, and Maria Sibylla Merian’s Insect plates, as well as various zoological and natural history museum archives in London. I’ve started to draw a series of scientific illustrations depicting British insects and the plants they feed on, and the same for birds.
I would also like to work again with the Royal Entomological Society, which I’ve been supporting since the release of Insectarium, on bringing awareness to endangered insect species through my drawings. My main aim for this year is to spend more time at the drawing board creating more thoughtful work – when you run a business, you spend surprisingly little time actually creating, which is a great shame, and given that one takes quite a leap of faith in becoming an artist for a living, I owe it to myself to make more time for my practice.
Antique Hummingbirds I by Emily Carter
9. Finally, is there a book, art-related or otherwise, that’s had a lasting impact on you or your creative process?
I have a huge collection of books which I use for reference each season. I have archives of imagery on my laptop, too, but there’s nothing better than looking through a physical book. Audubon’s Birds of America, Seguy’s Decorative Butterflies and Insects, Taschen’s World of Ornament and The Collins Guide to Insects are where I repeatedly obtain most of my inspiration and scientific references from, and have shaped the direction of my work over the years.
The River Shell Scarf by Emily Carter
