Episode 54: Lillian G Murad & Laura Ashley
Lillian G Murad
The time was May 29 1917, the place Tbilisi Georgia, Lillan G Murad was born. As a child she wanted to be a concert pianist and went to the Conservatory of Music in Nice. Her family relocated to New York in the 1930s. In a surprise turn of events Lillian was one of the first women to receive a Bachelor of Science Degree in chemical engineering from Pratt University in New York in 1947 and a few years later she received a graduate studies degree from NYU. In 1948 she won the Chemical Engineering Alumni Award. By 1949 she started her own firm Muratex Chemicals which supplied chemicals to the Textile Industry. She was also working as the Assistant Manager and Vice President of Murad Textile Print Works, and did freelance textile design as well. From 1949-1951 she developed water-based pigment binders applicable to natural and synthetic fabrics. In 1952 was a good year for Lillian, she was awarded the Women’s Badge No 143 of Tau Beta Pi which is the second oldest honor society in the United States. That same year she was also selected as the second president of the Society of Women Engineers aka SWE . She was president from 1952-1953. She passed away in 2004
Laura Ashley
The time was September 7 1925, the place, Wales, United Kingdom, Laura Mountney was born. She went to several different schools, her family moved her around because of World War II and at 16 years old she joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service. From 1945 to 1952 she was the secretary of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes in London. While she was working for the Women’s Institutes she started quilting for them, Laura was quilting headscarves, napkins, table mats, and tea-towels, you know mostly furnishings for the home. And her husband started printing her designs onto the quilts with a machine he built to do that. both Laura and her husband quit their jobs and dedicated themselves to this quilt design and printing full-time, selling their merchandise under the company Laura Ashley. Over the years Laura expanded her designs and became a total fashion icon. Laura’s style is characterized as Romantic English meets nineteenth century rural. She passed away on September 17, 1985.
Caryatid: Paola Meléndez Domínguez
Paola Meléndez Domínguez is a Puerto Rican textile designer owner of Paola Meléndez Casa which sells handcrafted textiles for interior designs. She graduated from Parsons School of Design with a love for screen printing and fabric art. In 2019 she launched her company Paola Melendez Casa designing patterns and fabricating luxury interior fabrics. She starts out by hand painting every design, then that gets digitized and fabricated.
Follow them on: https://www.instagram.com/paolamelendezcasa/
References
findcourses.co.uk. “7 Textile Designers Who Changed the World.” Findcourses.Co.Uk, www.findcourses.co.uk/inspiration/hobby-fun-leisure-articles/7-textile-designers-who-changed-the-world-17402. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022.
“Lillian G. Murad.” Society of Women Engineers, 8 June 2021, swe.org/membership/lillian-g-murad.
Meléndez, Paola. “Artisan-Made Fabrics | Paola Melendez | Casa.” Paola Melendez |Casa, www.paolamelendezcasa.com. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022.
---. “Creating Luxury: Handprinted Fabrics.” Paola Melendez |Casa, 23 July 2022, www.paolamelendezcasa.com/post/creating-luxury-handprinted-fabrics.
Slesin, Suzanne. “LAURA ASHLEY, BRITISH DESIGNER, IS DEAD AT 60.” The New York Times, 18 Sept. 1985, www.nytimes.com/1985/09/18/world/laura-ashley-british-designer-is-dead-at-60.html.
“Tau Beta Pi Women’s Badge.” Tau Beta Pi The Engineering Honor Society, The Tau Beta Pi Association, Inc., www.tbp.org/about/Dist/WomensBadge.cfm. Accessed 1 Aug. 2022.
Wikipedia contributors. “Laura Ashley.” Wikipedia, 19 July 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Ashley.
