Yasmin Hayat for Soane Britain
Yasmin Hayat’s Syrian heritage and training at the Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts have led her to develop a unique blend of Arabic, Western and Indo-Persian traditions in her own paintings. While looking through the Egyptian fabrics in Lulu’s own collection, the pair decided to develop a leaf-like design found in an Egyptian tent border – this is now the intricately symmetrical ‘Rumi’ linen.
“As someone who studied geometry, I have a huge respect for maintaining the traditional and celebrating it, and I wanted to celebrate this Egyptian tent panel from Lulu’s collection.
The first step was analysing it. I worked from a large-scale print and put my compass and ruler on top of it, constructing lines, almost reverse working. I thought let me work backwards; let me find the grid, the initial circle that started all of this. Once I had found that initial circle and understood how the original tent maker had created it, I was then able to recreate it.
The original border didn’t quite work as a repeating unit, so I had to manipulate the pattern, make it work as a repeating unit, and that’s where my artistic expression came in.” – Yasmin Hayat
