Velvet Seflora

Velvet Seflora is a UK based Textile Designer and recent graduated from the Glasgow School of Art, where she specialised in Embroidery. Since graduating she has launched her own brand, Velvet Seflora, working as a freelance embroiderer as well as undertaking commissions and selling her bespoke, beaded accessories on her Etsy shop. Instagram: @velvet_seflora

Her work utilises traditional craft techniques, with a bright and playful aesthetic, in order to make high-end fashion artefacts that are designed to be treasured. She creates most of her accessories on a bead loom as it allows to her translate her drawings and photographs into beaded textiles, that can then be constructed into bags, purses and garments. 

Click to visit Velvet Seflora’s Etsy shop.

Velvet is best known for her 1920’s inspired beaded bags and colourful jewellery collections. Her inspiration can come from anywhere; from Victorian cake decorating to nights out with friends. Her work utilises recycled/ found objects and beads in order to create ornate fashion artefacts that are imbued with a sense of bold, subversive femininity. 

Having grown up on the south coast of England, and spending her childhood summers in the Irish country side, Velvet has always been fascinated by traditional hand craft techniques, such as corn dolly making and knitting. She was taught to sew at a young age by her grandmother, and subsequently enrolled at her local young Embroiderers Guild meetings. Here she discovered the sense of community that can be gained through hand crafting, and continues to thrive on collaborations with other designers.

Where would you like your work to take you?

I would really love to keep making products to be sold on my Etsy shop and to steadily build my brand over time. I would also love the opportunity to make larger scale and more detailed work, for example as commissions or in collaboration with other designers. I am excited for a time when I will be able to sell at physical market places when it is safe to do so. I am also hoping to save up enough money to continue my studies on a masters course to develop my skills in embroidery and silversmithing.

When did you start creating these textiles?

In the last few months of my time at university, before the Covid-19 lockdown, I discovered the bead loom and immediately became obsessed with it and what I could achieve through using it. Since then, particularly during the lockdowns, I have spent most of my time using the bead loom and creating other jewellery to be sold on my Etsy shop, that I launched in November 2020. But in terms of being creative generally, I have known for as long as I can remember that I wanted to work in textiles, specifically embroidery.

Where do you draw inspiration from?

I draw my inspiration from everyday life and anything that catches my eye; looking through charity shops, in nature and on Instagram. A lot of my inspiration also comes from my childhood as I feel like this is a time when I was most imaginative, for example playing tea parties, with my dolls house and friendship bracelet making. I also spent a lot of time in rural Ireland growing up, a place that I still associate with being very magical; looking for fairies and building miniature houses for them. This sense of childhood joy and innocence is something that I would like to convey in my work.

Can you list a couple other creatives/friends/people you look to for inspiration?

Chloe Charlett. @chloecharlettprint