From Chemistry to Fabrics: English-Made With a Twist
Charlotte Raffo is the owner of the Monkey Puzzle Tree: a brand of English-made, artist-designed fabrics and wallpapers, with a twist and a conscience. She talked to Mooi about her early love for Interior and the rugged road to Business.
“Every time I approach a project it’s about how I can make not just something good, but something that’s pushing the boundaries, that’s different from what’s out there” explains Charlotte.
Charlotte Raffo is the owner of the Monkey Puzzle Tree: English-made, artist-designed fabrics and wallpapers with a twist and a conscience.
“We collaborate with fine artists from the North of England to create fabrics and wallpapers with a twist and conscience. All made within 100 miles from our Leeds studio. I think I’ve made some really good products. Some new and different” she smiles, shyly proud.
A love of textile design that led to chemistry, and tannery
Charlotte comes from an unusual background. Her parents were both scientists and engineers. When she was a kid, she developed a strong love of interior and wanted to get into textile design. But her parents thought that going into the Arts was just too frivolous, and without many job prospects.
Charlotte therefore went to Colour and Polymer Chemistry University. Upon graduation, she found a job in a tannery, making leather, in Leeds. A tannery that supplied Louis Vuitton and other large brands working with leather. She got into product development.
“It was just the best job for me. It combined a bit of chemistry, but also the need to be a bit creative and doing some really interesting things. It was just a completely amazing, but kind of tricky, job” she reflects.
Indeed, Charlotte was pretty much the only girl, and only graduate, on the shop floor. At 21, surrounded by about 300 guys, it was a steep learning curve, but “fantastic”.
Unfortunately, the factory shut down in 2006, and everybody lost their jobs. To this day, they still all meet up once a year to catch up.
“I really thought that it was such a shame, that all those skills got lost, very few people got a job in the same industry. That stuck with me, and that’s part of the reason I want to support local industry”, Charlotte looks back.
A jump to entrepreneurship encouraged by circumstances
From there, Charlotte worked for Mamas & Papas, a nursery brand. She was a textile developer and buyer. Her work allowed her to travel through Europe, China and Taiwan. It was between designing, interpreting the designs and making them a reality.
“When I was made redundant 10 years later, it was a bit of a shock. But I also knew deep down that this was a chance for me to do something different and that’s what I did in creating the Monkey Puzzle Tree”.
When asked about what made her make the jump, what made her believe she could do it, Charlotte laughs out loud: “Naivety!” But then, more seriously, “I guess it was in me, I always thought it would be so good to do something on my own”.
It was a big leap. Charlotte was never a risk-taker. “I didn’t want to move out of Yorkshire, and I’ve been quite financially cautious, which has paid off in the end, but I stayed in the same jobs, only two in 16 years…”.
The loss of her second job gave her the push she needed. It was an opportunity. An acceptable way to bounce back, even for her close relations. To have left a well-paid steady job to do this would have been impossible.
The difficulty of planned purchases
The learning curve was steep. “I realized shortly after I started that successful business owners have a background in marketing, not in products, and I can really see that now. I had to learn a lot, and sales are really not my thing, but I guess I have to make it my thing, because you can’t have a business if you’re not selling stuff” she smiles weakly.
To this day, Charlotte still sees making sales as her biggest obstacle. And not just because of her need to learn.
“When you’re selling something very different, it’s not something that people will be google-searching for. And it’s very high-end, therefore expensive, and it needs a lot of planning … It’s not like when you have a glass of wine and on the spur of the moment you buy a dress. If you’re wallpapering your house, that’s not an impulse purchase. It’s probably one of the most difficult things to sell” she reflects.
Richness and diversity of artists
As for the rest, her products and designs and the choice of her artists was a process.
“It started with artists I knew vaguely. A couple of times it was someone I might have seen on Instagram. And then I thought, all the artists I happened to be working with are local artists, so I decided to make that a thing, support artists from the Yorkshire area” she explains.
Since that decision, Charlotte’s made a real effort to try and get the message out a bit further, to recruit from a diverse population to truly represent the diversity of the area.
“If I want to have something different I’m going to have to look further, harder, to find it. I work really closely with the artists. I try to pick somebody who’s doing something really special, with their own style, and maybe they’ve been working on it for 20 years. Something unique”.
It is the same dynamic with the products. She pushes for the use of new materials. The process is about “absolutely reproducing almost their soul in the product, not just digitally printing it. I want to do more”.
The materials and the methods: an Art form of its own
Charlotte works with the artists in different ways. With Sarah Thornton, they chose a sketch the artist made on a hotel notepad with pen and watercolor, and created an amazing and vivid fabric.
With Sarah Jane Palmer, they chose a design inspired by lace, and her grandmother looking through her neck curtains, to create a Body Lace voile.
Choosing what material and method are best for each design is really where Charlotte’s background comes through. While working in the tannery, she did a lot of developing new printing techniques.
Like “scanning my hair into the photocopier and creating different roller effects, or knitting wool” she laughs. “I did a lot of creative things because I worked on a shop floor, with people who actually know how to push those boundaries a bit. I’ve got the confidence to say, can we do this? And if not, why not?”.
Charlotte doesn’t like being faced with the manufacturers’ salesperson, offering her what’s possible. She would rather walk around the mill and look at it all. “And I’ll go like, what’s that in the corner, and they go, no, nobody wants that, and I say, yeah I want that!” she smiles brightly.
But figuring out a way to make it work, a way to physically create the image she has in her mind, that’s her favorite part of the job.
“Sometimes it is quite hard. It’s also the scariest part, because what if it doesn’t work out and I’ve just spent thousands of pounds on something that’s terrible. As it goes on, you get more confident that it’s going to be ok. You just start having faith in your own abilities”.
Charlotte has some big projects coming in the next few months. She’s hoping to finally be able to pass the Covid barrier: go back to fairs, meet some of the artists that she hasn’t been able to meet yet, reinforce the relationships, so important in these kinds of collaborations.
“I will release some new exciting designs. I love making new designs, so I’m hoping we can make more of that in the future. I had a few exciting projects in the last 6 months”. And it’s only the beginning.
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