Catherine Martin is renowned in the film design world, winning two Oscars for her work on the 2001 film Moulin Rouge as well as a number of Australian Film Industry awards, BAFTAs and a Tony Award. However, Martin is now stepping away from the film set and into the living room, welcoming her new range of homewares.

The Australian Production and Costume Designer has collaborated with Porter’s Paints and Designer Rugs to produce the first installment of her eponymous homewares range.

Martin developed the range while researching for the Baz Lhurmann epic, Australia. Her investigation of flora and fauna for the film has had a significant and obvious influence on the ‘Australiana’ suite, giving it a ‘strong but feminine element and a uniquely Australian angle.’

“We are emerging from a time where everything has been neutral in colour and as the wheels of fashion turn, we are ready for pattern to bring a wonderful joyfulness into our lives,” Martin says.

“I wanted to invoke the transforming power of pattern, which can change the mundane into the extraordinary merely by its application,” she says.

Martin has created eight rugs with Designer Rugs and eight wallpapers and corresponding paints with Porter’s Paints, all available from September 2008.

www.designerrugs.com.au

www.porterspaints.com

Images: Geoff Sumner Photography