As the seasons shift from balmy summer nights to frosty mornings, our new Woodlands range invites you to nestle in the dappled light and cosy vibes of autumnal days. Breaking away from the soft field florals of summer, our new collection embraces the wildness of forest flowers and self-sown blooms in a mid-century palette of dark chocolate, hazelnut, magenta, mustard and cerise.
To lift the lid on our Woodlands collection, we go behind the scenes with our co-founder Bonnie Ashley. We asked her about how this enchanting range of nature rich foliage and floral inspired prints came to be, how we can elevate our interiors in the cooler months, and how she’d spend her perfect autumn day – outdoors, of course!
Bonnie and Neil’s new Woodlands range has an enchanting, autumnal undertone to the collection. What inspired this collection and how did you incorporate elements of nature into the range?
For me the starting point was to be inspired by the season while also thinking about some of the themes from our last collection in a more wintery context. Think wild flowers, self-sown flowers and more untouched florals and plant life – I think these are often just as beautiful in winter as they are in summer. Flannel flowers are throughout the collection, and I love the way their petals have a distinct and irregular shape.
Following this, how did you bring the essence of nature in the wild to life with the colour palette you worked with?
For this collection I had a colour palette in mind which features lots of beautiful browns and hazelnuts tones, which I love at the moment and they are nice cosy tones to have in your home in winter.
One of our favourite prints in the collection is the flannel flower print, which you brought to life from an original oil painting you created – can you tell us a little more about this process?
Some of my oil paintings featured in our last collection and I explored this technique further for the Woodlands collection using an intricate flannel flower I painted, then scratching back the paint and layers to expose different marks. We’ve used the flannel flower print in both a small and large scale pattern. It’s quite a delicate design but we’ve put it in a bold cerise colour – I really love the contrast of having a more delicate design and bringing it to life in a really beautiful, rich kind of colour.
The Woodlands collection features a newcomer to the Bonnie and Neil line-up with the brand’s first wool marle cushions crafted from chunky mélange boucle wool. How did these come to be?
I designed our wool marle cushions because I love more vintage inspired wovens, and I've always loved a mélange effect. I was looking to design a cushion that would really complement our printed range but wasn’t too one dimensional. I wanted something that was textured but then also had a beautiful level of pattern and colour to it.
I designed these cushions to subtly feature all of the colours in our collection so they really work with all of the printed cushions in the range – you’ll see the same chocolate brown, fuchsia and pinks. These cushions style really nicely with the rest of the cushions in the Woodlands collection but they also look really beautiful by themselves and are really versatile.
Which two cushions from this collection are living side by side on your couch at home right now?
I love our pink marle cushion with our flannel flower cushion in cerise, it’s a really beautiful combo. But there are too many that I love really, the Sage Wool Marle with the Mave Green cushion is beautiful too.
As the seasons change and we move into the cooler months, do you have any simple styling tips to transform our interiors from summery days to cosy autumnal vibes?
Definitely! Change up the bed linen, add different cushions in your living space with more wintery textures, like our new wool marle range, and one of our Bonnie and Neil tufted wool rugs add an element of warmth like nothing else for a cosy, textured living space.
And finally, how would you describe your ultimate Woodlands inspired day trip in Melbourne?
I love going up to the hills, so you’d definitely find me in Sassafras or Olinda. I also love Daylesford and around Hepburn Springs in winter for that sort of dark, cosy bit of nature with breakfast at Cliffy’s Emporium and a good trawl through the Daylesford Mills Markets – hopefully with something to bring back home.
Photography by Martina Gemmola and Styling by Natalie Turnbull.
