From Claridge’s Hotel to the London Underground: The Life and Work of Textile Designer Marion Dorn

From a packed auditorium at the Brighton Road Baptist Church, members of the Arts Society Horsham were guided on a stunning and glamorous virtual trip across London and beyond exploring the extraordinary career of textile designer Marion Dorn.  

Our lecturer Pamela Campbell-Johnston opened with a thought provoking question - how many of us had taken a second look at the seat fabric we sat on the last time we travelled on the London Underground?!  It could very well have been a Marion Dorn design whose prolific career spanned from the 1920s to 1960s, reaching its zenith in the Art Deco period and thriving into mid century modernism.  

The American born Marion graduated at Stanford University, California with a Degree in Graphic Art soon found herself in Paris where she met Edward McKnight Kauffer who became her second husband.  They moved to London and collaborated on projects for theatre productions in costume and set designs.  However, Marion channelled her creative talent in the design of fabrics, wallpaper and rugs which became her iconic signature (literally, as she ‘signed” all her rugs!) with their clean geometric pattern of swirls and squares, synonymous with modernity which also found expressions in the architecture of the day.  In 1934, Marion Dorn Ltd was formed with an address in New Bond Street and commissions would come from hotels, ocean liners, department stores as well as celebrities of the day such as the Courtaulds at Eltham Palace, Arnold Bennett and Syrie Maugham in the creation of her “White Room”.  On a day out in London in the 1920s and 1930s, you would be able to choose a wide selection of Marion Dorn scarves at Fortnum & Mason and if you are taking tea at Claridge’s Hotel, you will be greeted by a dramatic circular Marion Dorn rug in the lobby area.   A ride on the London Underground would have seats upholstered in a Marion Dorn design, possibly a Colindale leaf pattern or a Caledonian!  A night out at a West End theatre will most likely feature stage and costume designs with a Marion Dorn hallmark!  On your holiday to New York on the SS Normandie or the Queen Mary, you will be sipping cocktails in the lounge with a wall to wall Dorn rug!  Closer to home, a stay at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe would have provided an immersive experience of Dorn designs! 

Such a prolific and prodigious career was not always plain sailing for a woman in business in a discipline of graphic art which, in the hierarchy of arts of the time, was relegated to the lower rung! However, Marion Dorn rose above it all and elevated graphic art with an enduring legacy that continues to influence artists and designers of today.  Much of her original work is now stored for the nation at museums such as the V&A but reproductions can be seen in situ at Eltham Palace, Coleton Fishacre etc, or in designs adopted or imitated!  

If you do track down a genuine Marion Dorn rug, do look out for her “signature” to honour her place in the making of 20th Century British Art Deco.