Sunny Prints, Patterns And Textures (Oh My!) In Rachel Castle's New Collection

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‘I remember being a teenager in the 80s and spending long, hot summers lolling about with my friends on our beds talking for hours and hours and listening to Bananarama’, recalls designer and artist Rachel Castle of Castle. ‘I had a gingham bikini and high top yellow connies, it was always warm and sunny, and everything was just a bike ride away’.

The Spring/Summer ’19 Castle collection of bed linen and homewares is imbued with the same bright, carefree energy as a long Australian summer. Although this isn’t surprising, considering it came from the brain of the woman who lives in ‘The Sunshine Home’!

Today we chat to Rachel about this new collection, slowing down the fast-paced nature of homewares, and her relationship with longterm friend and collaborator Louella Boitell-Gill, whose Bangalow home features in this shoot!

24th September, 2019

A deliciously comfy scene at Louella Boitel-Gill’s Bangalow home, shooting the Castle & Things Spring/Summer ’19 collection. Photo – Caitlin Mills. Styling – Louella Boitel Gill.

Bright graphic bags from the new collection. Photo – Caitlin Mills. Styling – Louella Boitel Gill.

Designer Rachel Castle with longtime friend and collaborator, stylist Louella Boitel-Gill, outside Louella’s Bangalow home. Photo – Caitlin Mills. Styling – Louella Boitel Gill.

Rachel and photographer Caitlin Mills travelled to Bangalow for the shoot – ‘It was a no brainer girls weekend with a little bit of work thrown in’, says Rachel. Photo – Caitlin Mills. Styling – Louella Boitel Gill.

Navy/blush printed cotton gingham is one of the key bedding stories for this collection. Photo – Caitlin Mills. Styling – Louella Boitel Gill.

No one does a bright, happy pattern quite like Rachel Castle! Photo – Caitlin Mills. Styling – Louella Boitel Gill.

Bunk beds decked out in Castle & Things at the Bangalow house. Photo – Caitlin Mills. Styling – Louella Boitel Gill.

Castle & Things soft furnishings alongside Rachel’s artwork in Louella’s home. Photo – Caitlin Mills. Styling – Louella Boitel Gill.

The Spring/Summer ’19 collection key bedding stories side by side – navy/blush printed cotton gingham, and a yellow/blush flower motif cotton. Photo – Caitlin Mills. Styling – Louella Boitel Gill.

Sally Tabart

Tuesday 24th September 2019

‘I pick up where everything needs to go… and Louella comes in after me and messes it all up!’ – Rachel Castle.

Rachel Castle traveled to Bangalow (along with photographer Caitlin Mills) to shoot the Castle Spring Summer ’19 range at stylist Louella Boitell-Gill’s charming new weekender, The Gypsy Creek. The relationship between these two women – longtime friends and collaborators – adds an extra special sentiment. First meeting in London during the ’90s, where they both worked The Conran Shop, an iconic London design store, the pair have been best buddies and each other’s creative sounding boards for many years.

Despite being ‘the MOST opposite kinds of people, really if a piece of string was quite long [Rachel] would be on one end all buttoned up and tidy, and Louella would be at other all organic and free’, the women are excellent collaborators. Rachel explains, ‘I pick up where everything needs to go…. and she comes in after me and messes it all up, giving it the true sing-song that is definitely her signature style’. It’s pretty special when friends can work so well together, and for so long!

An ode to those long Australian summers, this new Castle collection is filled with texture and pattern in true Rachel Castle style: playful ginghams, florals, spots in cottons and linens. The range comprises two main bedding stories, a navy/blush printed cotton gingham, and a yellow/blush flower motif cotton. ‘We then added big bold florals in linen pillowcases and a little baby floral for accent in our big double sided linen bedspread’, Rachel enthuses of the highly-edited range.

Designed for longevity, each piece in a Castle collection is intended to be mixed and matched with not only other items in its season, but older linen ranges as well.‘Homewares are increasingly becoming like fast fashion – new range then sale, new range then sale’, Rachel says. ‘We try to make sure our ranges stick around for at least a few years so our customers are updating by adding sometimes, rather than replacing one season after the next’.

There are a lot of fabulous bed linen ranges out there these days, but we have to say, Rachel Castle always nails it!

The Castle Spring/Summer ’19 collection is available for pre-order now, for a mid-October delivery.

Love Louella’s Bangalow home? You can stay in it!