V&A heading to worldwide influence 

London based leading museum of art and design,Victoria and Albert Museum, “the V&A”, is crossing borders, inspiring excellence in licensed products not only in its homeland. The recent roster of announced licensee ranging from stationery and textiles to beauty accessories and cakeware includes three non-English companies.

Based in Sydney, Sparkk, an innovative textile design company, have signed a licence with the V&A to produce a range of wall coverings, furnishing fabrics and cushions. Sparkk will distribute throughout Australia and New Zealand starting January 2015 a first collection featuring designs from the V&A’s textile archives and is due to launch in January 2015.

Dutch design company ixxi have developed a really innovative way to display works of art in any room: the image is broken up into individual squares which can be joined together using plastic connectors. Once fully assembled the image is revealed and the poster is ready to be hung onto the wall, using the power strips provided. ixxi chose patterns by William Morris, hand-painted Chinese wallpapers and textiles from the False Principle, the 1853 exhibition commissioned by the V&A’s founder, Sir Henry Cole.

The Netherlands-based company Bekking & Blitz have created cloth-bound journals covered in Rose by William Morris and Leicester by John Henry Dearle – both are interior patterns produced by Morris & Co. in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Victoria and Albert may have lost their Empire, but it seems like they are regaining it.