HOUSE OF HACKNEY
THE NATURE OF MORRIS
In November 2025, following the success of their first collaboration, Andrea renewed his partnership with House of Hackney by working on the brand’s Holiday campaign.
The collection stems from a dialogue with Frieda Gormley, co-founder of House of Hackney, centred on the legacy of the Arts and Crafts Movement and its enduring ability to inspire a vision of design in which beauty, craftsmanship and ethics coexist in perfect harmony. This shared reflection reveals common ground between the artist’s practice and the brand’s identity: both are driven by a desire to restore value to the creative act, to history and to nature as sources of contemporary imagination.
From this conversation emerges “The Nature of Morris”, a manifesto collection that views the Arts and Crafts heritage not merely as an aesthetic repertoire, but as a system of values that remains deeply meaningful today.
At the heart of the project stands the figure of May Morris, a key figure often sidelined in historical narratives in favour of her father, William Morris. A master craftswoman, embroiderer, designer, feminist, socialist and activist, May made an essential contribution to the movement, redefining the role of the applied arts and championing the cultural value of manual labour.
Andrea Zanatelli’s approach naturally aligns with these traditions. His collages, constructed through a patient layering of fragments, evoke the slowness and precision of ancient embroidery techniques, transforming the image into a woven surface where history and symbolism coexist. In this imagined dialogue with May Morris, the collages become an act of renewal, giving new life to historical iconography while never reducing it to a mere reference.
The collection consists of two cushions. ‘Love Is Enough’ reworks ‘The Orchard (A Fruit Garden): Design for a Large Embroidered Panel’ (1888), re-interpreting its symbolic language through the artist’s visual sensibility. ‘Electric Heart’, on the other hand, draws on the medieval imagery of books of emblems, so dear to the Arts and Crafts movement, transforming the heart into a symbol poised between devotion, nature and desire.
More than a tribute, 'The Nature of Morris' is a dialogue across time: an encounter between artistic practices, shared ideals and visions that continue to challenge the present. A collection that sheds new light on a key figure in the history of the decorative arts and reaffirms the value of beauty as a cultural, political and profoundly human expression.
