Our History

Penny Morrison’s work is shaped by a lifetime of interiors, rather than a single starting point.

She grew up in South Africa, where an early understanding of relaxed living — of light, space and an informal approach to interiors — became instinctive. In the 1970s, she moved to the United Kingdom, settling in London and beginning what would become a long and varied career in interiors.

Without formal training, her approach developed through experience. She began by decorating and restoring flats, building an understanding of proportion, colour and composition through doing rather than instruction. What started as personal projects quickly led to commissions from friends, and gradually evolved into a full interior design practice.

Over the following decades, Penny Morrison worked across a wide range of interiors, from London houses to country properties and international projects. Her aesthetic was shaped not only by this breadth of work, but by extensive travel and exposure to different ways of living — from time spent in New York and South Africa to the English countryside, alongside regular travel, particularly to India.

At the centre of her work was a deep appreciation for the English country house  'look'— its layering, its use of pattern and colour, and its sense of ease built up over time. But as her projects became more international, this presented a challenge.

Working on houses in Barbados and a hotel in St Barths, it became clear that the traditional English country house palette she loved did not translate directly. The darker grounds and more muted colours, so effective in England, needed to be lifted — fresher, brighter and more responsive to light and climate — while still retaining the depth and character that made them so compelling.

The Start of a Design House

This became a defining moment. In order to achieve the right balance, Penny began developing her own fabrics for these projects — refining colour, adjusting scale and working with softer, more relaxed bases that would sit naturally in lighter, more open spaces.

What emerged were fabrics that felt distinct from what was available at the time: looser in handle, fresher in palette, and more instinctive in their use of pattern. They allowed for the same sense of layering and depth, but in a way that felt entirely appropriate to the setting.

These designs formed the foundation of the Penny Morrison collection.

Alongside her interior design work, Penny had built an extensive archive of antique textiles, documents and objects, gathered over many years of travel and collecting. This archive informed the development of the designs — not as material to replicate, but as a point of reference to study, reinterpret and refine.

In 2008, these fabrics were formally introduced as the first Penny Morrison textile and wallpaper collection. It was not a departure from the interior design practice, but a natural extension of it — shaped directly by the demands of real projects and a clear understanding of what was missing from the market.

A Continuation Today

Since then, the company has evolved into a dedicated design house, producing textiles, wallcoverings and lighting used by interior designers internationally. The collections have grown steadily, but the approach has remained consistent — grounded in experience, informed by provenance, and developed with a clear sense of how materials are used within a room.

There is no emphasis on constant reinvention. The work evolves gradually, building on what already exists, allowing designers to return to it with confidence. Materials are chosen for their quality and character, and production is approached with the same level of care, working with specialist mills and makers who bring depth of skill and understanding.

What has endured is a way of working — a belief in fabric as the foundation of a room, a confidence in colour and pattern, and an instinct for creating interiors that feel layered, comfortable and entirely at ease.