Founded in 2021 by Prue MacLeod and Emerald Dangerfield, Bloomfield Ink was born out of a shared love for rich colour, natural forms, and the quiet magic of slow craftsmanship.
What began as a spontaneous creative spark, ignited by a bespoke tweed suit lining and a weekend workshop with artist Hugh Dunford Wood, has grown into a deeply soulful celebration of traditional British block printing.
Rather than chasing fleeting trends, Prue and Emerald choose to release just one or two collections a year, allowing every design the time and space it needs to find its own rhythm.
For this week’s Sunday Series, we step inside the studio with Prue and Emerald to explore their deliberate, slow-crafted philosophy, the rhythmic storytelling behind their collections, and their timeless approach to living with pattern.
Let’s get into it.
Hugh Dunford Wood was the original spark behind Bloomfield Ink. How did his work and artistic philosophy specifically influence your decision to launch the brand in 2021?
It actually began with a Catkin coloured tweed suit commissioned by Prue. Designed and made by Emerald’s mother Camilla Milton, with a Catkin print lining designed specially for it by Emerald. A mutual love of colour, nature and form was established and from here ideas began to flow and Bloomfield Ink began. Prue found Hugh Dunford Wood’s wallpaper weekend course and off Emerald went. Hugh enabled us to technically realise our designs as well as inspiring us with his wonderful spirit and approach to design.
You have a strict commitment to releasing just one collection a year. How does this deliberate, quiet rollout support your brand's sustainability and creative health?
We do this to respect the process and allow for designs to develop. Designs can change
significantly over time, in using traditional methods we are guided by certain parameters which all influence the final result. The achievable block size governs the size of the possible repeats that fits within a block, which is particularly relevant to scale. Each colour introduced also necessitates a new block and being conscious of making the wallpaper accessible we try to achieve the most impact with the fewest number of blocks. Our Wild Thing design started its life as an original watercolour of the flowers in Emerald’s grandmother Cherry Milton’s garden. It initially compromised of 13 blocks, which we reduced to 5, this took many days and a great deal of pacing across the studio!
Dancing Ladies Collection
What was the core inspiration behind the Dancing Ladies collection, and how does it push the boundaries of your previous botanical and nature-led themes?
The Dancing Ladies - conceived in Spring at Honiton during the Hugh Dunford Wood Wallpaper workshop weekend, is a botanical and nature led design leaning towards abstraction, it celebrates the dance of growing life. It is an impression of the world outside drawing on inspirations within, memory, music, experience, which all play a part in how something is interpreted and realised. It is also our largest scale design and plays with the largest area of negative space - room to think amidst the dance!
Can you walk us through the movement and rhythm of the Dancing Ladies design? How do you capture fluid human or floral motion within a repeating block-printed pattern?
The rhythm is natural and flowing, like a vine growing up a wall. Leaves and imagined fruits dance between and up the Ogee vine. The half drop repeat extends the design in fluid and organic way. We are big fans of the half-drop repeat as it enables you to open up a design and bring a greater sense of fluidity and movement into it.
Dancing Ladies (Cha Cha)
Wallpapers set the entire tone for how a home feels. What kind of room, energy, or moment in someone's home do you picture Dancing Ladies hosting?
We designed each colourway with different energies in mind. The bolder brighter colours - Jive, Jitterbug, Salsa make you feel lively and alert. Great for dining rooms, drawing rooms, rooms for being alive in! We are both also tremendous fans of wallpapered kitchens, notorious for all sorts of magic and wonderful chaos! Our softer offerings - Buck and Wing, Pirouette are meant to soothe and calm so work naturally in bedrooms, studies, libraries, where a sense of peace is welcome. The Charleston and The Foxtrot on calming grounds, printed with our metallic ‘Gilver’ play with the glistening light and work wonderfully in illuminating halls and passageways. Each room has its own energy and part of the fun is interpreting what that is for you, and how you want to feel when spending time in it.
When hand-printing wallpaper, slight variations and human quirks occur naturally. How do you embrace these imperfections as marks of authenticity rather than flaws?
It is the beauty in the imperfection we love! Prue often encourages people to FEEL the paper, to fully embrace and understand its unique character. The hand printing process adds a warm softness and depth of texture that is impossible to replicate even though there are many impressive and sophisticated digital printers out there. Having said this, the depth of the imperfection is very important to us. Sometimes over time, the wear and tear of the block has caused a grid like effect, which means… time for a new block to be cut. The pattern should feel seamless and the joins unnoticeable, the touch of the hand felt subtly within the design rather than dictating it.
Dancing Ladies (Fandango)
Prue coming from fashion and art, and Emerald from textile design, how does having a mentor figure or strong artistic influences help you navigate the balance between your two distinct skill sets?
Two perspectives, bouncing off each other with a wider pool of references and ideas always makes the process incredibly exciting and unexpected. Ideas and experimentation dance in all sorts of different directions before we harness the ones that are evolving and discard the ones that are, perhaps best left unseen! Prue who is, in her own words, slightly more outspoken, has a tremendous talent for getting to the core of what is working and what is not, whereas Emerald, in her own words, is rather waffly and chaotic and her ideas can need a bit of refining!
Your Kosmos collection offers a fascinating departure into broader themes. How does Kosmos complement the more grounded, botanical feel of collections like Daffodils or Eat Your Greens?
The Kosmos explores the symbols of the Universe we hold vital and dear and the interconnected nature of it all. In essence it is a celebration of life. It pays homage to the Linnaeun taxonomy and its classifications- animal, vegetable, mineral with perhaps a dive into the spiritual…We are endlessly inspired by all elements of the natural world, not just the heavenly floriferous. In recognition of different tastes, we wanted to expand our collection offering with a bolder fresh design that could work like a geometric design, adding a more linear and structured line to a room, where Daffodil and Eat Your Greens are more fluid and free flowing.
Kosmos (Eremos/Aoidis)
Hand block printing is wonderfully tactile and unapologetically slow. In a world
obsessed with instant results, what's the most rewarding part of sticking strictly to traditional British craft?
The process is honest and organic. It is a process of people, moving through many hands from conception to design and experimentation to the final production. It is human and alive and we respect the time it takes for all hands to come together. The installation of rolls that have taken months to develop and come to life in their final destination (if slightly nervewracking!) something rather magical and well worth the wait. This is not a temporary or throwaway product, it is meant and made to last as a backdrop to your life for many years to come.
For someone standing in an empty room, intimidated by pattern, what is your top rule of thumb for selecting the right scale of wallpaper?
Read the room. Think about the mood of it, how would you like to feel in it? What paintings you would like to put in it? Is it to be bold, positive, uplifting, calming, peaceful, playful? Trust your instinct and enjoy the process. Though guidelines do exist such as -
a smaller scale might become more like a paint effect in a large room, whereas a large scale design in a small room can make a room feel larger. These are just guidelines, ultimately it is how you would like it to feel and what you would like to use in it.
Kosmos
Outside the studio, how do your individual tastes and personal lifestyles bleed into the way you collaborate on a new pattern?
Both of us walk a lot. Walking is essential for processing ideas and absorbing the natural
environment around us. Observing how things grow and different plants intertwine and connect with each other. There is inspiration everywhere from the smallest seed, to seedpod, leaf, leaf formation, branches and spaces in between, wildflowers, gardens, we could go on! Similarly time in bustling London and travelling taking in colourful sights, sounds, perspectives, lights all fall in to how we design. We both enjoy meeting people and looking at different crafts, and most of all time with our families at home. Which is where the wallpaper actually sits.
What is one vintage or hand-crafted piece in your personal wardrobes or homes that you could never part with?
Prue: Her Catkin Tweed suit. Where it all began! We had no idea at this point where it would go.
Emerald: Her wedding dress, created by her treasured family and worn to marry the man she loves! Designed and made by her brother designer, Henry Dangerfield out of vintage Indian silk sari bought back by her sister Sophia’s late father and textile dealer, Mark Akroyd. The support of our loving families is essential to the make up of Bloomfield Ink.
Dancing Ladies (Jitterbug and Colourways)
What is currently on your nightstand or coffee table? Is there a book, art monograph, or piece of writing that is feeding your imagination right now?
A host of half read and varied books! Ranging from design to Psychology.
Prue is currently looking at Elizabeth Metcalfe’s New English Home. Emerald has just discovered Basilius Besler’s - Florilegium and works by her writer husband, Michael
Bond, are never far!
How should homeowners approach mixing hand-printed botanical wallpapers with existing furniture, textiles, and artwork without the space feeling overly busy?
Don’t worry about it or overthink it. If you like it, GO for it. Unique mixes are what makes things interesting and unusual. The more points of definition in the form of furniture, paintings and textiles you add to the wallpaper the more it recedes and works as the canvas it was designed to be. The pattern will become a backdrop rather than dominating and feeling overly busy. Experiment with positioning of everything to find your own Feng-Shui.
Dancing Ladies (Tango and Salsa)
If you could give just one golden tip for anyone looking to make a home feel warm, soulful, and authentically them, what would it be?
Always follow your heart and your eyes. Build your room with the things that you love. Choices driven by what you love, not trends or someone else’s vision, will build up an authentic space with distinctive colours and patterns that are likely to stand the test of time.
Dancing Ladies (Pirouette)
Bloomfield Ink reminds us that true luxury lies in patience, human touch, and unyielding authenticity.
By releasing just one or two collections a year and honouring the natural quirks of the hand-printing block, Prue and Emerald create wallpapers that transcend fleeting interior trends, offering instead enduring backdrops for life’s most cherished moments.
Whether drawing inspiration from a quiet walk in nature, the vibrant chaos of a family kitchen, or the rhythmic energy of an abstract botanical, their work is an invitation to trust your instincts and surround yourself with what you truly love. As Bloomfield Ink continues to celebrate the beauty of slow design, they prove that when a home is built from the heart, it naturally becomes a soulful, timeless original.
Check out their designs for yourself here.
See you next week.
Image credit: Barney Curran, Chris Terry, Michael Bond
