Page 58 - Country Homes & Interiors (August 2019)
P. 58
❝Our first order was
10 parasols for
Glastonbury festival❞
Parasol designers Katy and Charlie naPier
orgeous parasols made on art installations at the Baltic Centre for
from vintage-style fabrics Contemporary Art in Gateshead. Katy also
are the trademark of handmade landed a job nearby working on costumes
Gparasol company Sunbeam for the popular ITV show Vera.
Jackie. It’s no surprise that founders, Katy and The couple had been looking to start their
Charlie Napier, are talented artists with a own business for a while. ‘I had grown up in
wealth of design experience between them. a small hotel and saw my dad doing his own
The inspiration for the business came in thing and being his own boss and that was
2011 when Katy and Charlie were watching instrumental,’ says Charlie. Then inspiration
Werner Herzog’s film Cobra Verde, and a struck when the couple watched Cobra
scene with villagers carrying parasols and Verde. ‘We didn’t have the money to make
parading their chief in a West African village a prototype so we bought a fishing umbrella
caught their eye. ‘We thought the parasols from Argos and some funky bright fabric from
were fantastic and we’d never seen anything Goldhawk Road,’ says Charlie. ‘Katy made
like them before,’ says Katy. ‘There was a makeshift canopy for the parasol and we
a scene with a number of open parasols took it out to the Northumbrian countryside
piled upside down and that really struck and took a great photo of Katy holding it.
us. We wanted to make something similar.’ The parasol was unfinished but we sent the
Katy studied fine art at the University shot to Misty Buckley, a friend of a friend
of Brighton before completing an MA who does production design for live shows
at Central Saint Martins in scenography. and events. We got an email back saying,
Charlie, meanwhile, also studied fine art, “I’ll have 10 of those for the artists’ warm-up
but at Falmouth University, followed by an area at Glastonbury”. We didn’t have 10 –
MA at Newcastle University. After meeting we didn’t even have one! So we enlisted the
Charlie on a film set, Katy later moved up help of some furniture makers to help design
to Newcastle where he had a job working and manufacture them, then we went fabric >
58 CoUNTRy HoMeS & INTeRIoRS
