Making Cryséde: An Iconic Trio

Cryséde (pronounced kri-sade) was the product of talented directors, artists, and manufacturers. There were three key people that led Cryséde Silks to its success: Alec Walker, Kathleen ‘Kay’ Earle, and Tom Heron. This is a glimpse of their story.

In 1912, Alec Walker was given a small mill by his father, a silk mill owner. Using that mill, he produced Vigil Silks, and began to sell them in London. In that same year, he met Kathleen (Kay) Earle when advertising for a poster designer. Kay had attended Forbes School of Painting in Newlyn and submitted a poster design, introducing him to Newlyn and its artist community, and prompting Alec to take up landscape painting.

The two married in 1918, moving to Newlyn where they set up Cryséde Silks. Over the years, both designed for the company, though it was Kay that designed many of the early garments with spots, stripes, and plain colours.

It was later that Alec Walker’s own print designs came to Cryséde. In 1924, Walker visited Paris and met French artist Raoul Dufy, who encouraged Walker to translate his own paintings to textile designs. The result was the bright and colourful, modern textile designs that make Cryséde so iconic to this day.

These new designs were transferred onto silk using traditional hand-block printing and vibrant synthetic dyes. Their popularity ensured Cryséde’s success for another decade.

In 1925, the third of the talented trio came into the picture. Tom Heron was a blouse manufacturer when Walker asked him to become Cryséde’s managing director.  He moved down from Leeds to join him and enjoyed the company’s international success alongside the Walkers for the next four years.

Sadly, in 1929 these three parted ways. After a dispute about the future expansion of the company, Tom Heron was dismissed and moved to Welwyn Garden City where he founded Cresta Silks. That same year Alec Walker had a nervous breakdown, ending in his and Kay’s divorce.

Cryséde continued but struggled to keep up with its early success. International financial crises and looming World War II sent the company into voluntary liquidation in 1939. Afterwards, Cryséde (1939) Ltd was formed with a handful of shops surviving.

In 1933, Walker finally departed from the business and remarried. However, he was once again unhappy in love, with his second marriage ending in 1945.

A year later, in 1946, it was Heron’s organisation, Cresta Silks, that bought into Cryséde Ltd. In this last chapter, before Cryséde’s final closure in 1980, a Debenhams Director stepped in as Managing Director of Cresta Silks, merging the two and renaming Cryséde ‘Cresta’ in 1952.

Find out more about the story of Cryséde, the characters behind its success, its ups and downs, and the beauty of the patterns and garments produced in the exhibition, Cryséde: Iconic Imagemakers. Opening Monday 27 May, learn more about Cryséde here.