Peter McCulloch and Heal's "Project": The Story Behind a 1968 British Design Icon
In 1968, at the height of Britain's most creatively adventurous decade, a designer named Peter McCulloch created a textile called "Project" for Heal's of London. It was bold, geometric, and unmistakably of its moment — a pattern that captured the confidence and optimism of late 1960s British design with quiet precision. More than half a century later, original examples of "Project" are rare, sought after, and recognised as genuine pieces of British design history.
At RetroTime we are delighted to have sourced one.
Heal's: Britain's Most Important Design Retailer
To understand the significance of a Heal's textile, you need to understand what Heal's represented in 1968. Founded in London in 1810, Heal's had by the mid-20th century become the pre-eminent retailer of modern British design — the shop where discerning buyers came for furniture, fabrics and homewares that reflected the best of contemporary design thinking.
Heal's Fabrics division, established in the 1940s under the direction of Tom Worthington, became one of the most important commissioning bodies in British textile design. Working with leading designers of the day — including Lucienne Day, whose "Calyx" fabric of 1951 is considered one of the great works of post-war British design — Heal's published textiles that were genuinely ahead of their time.
By the late 1960s, Heal's Fabrics was producing work that reflected the era's fascination with geometry, space, and the clean graphic language of Op Art. Peter McCulloch's "Project" sits squarely within this tradition.
Peter McCulloch and "Project"
Peter McCulloch was a British textile designer working in the late 1960s, a period when the boundaries between fine art, graphic design and textile design were productively blurred. The "Project" pattern — dating from 1968 — is a masterclass in geometric restraint: bold rectangular forms in deep, saturated colours, arranged with a graphic confidence that feels as relevant today as it did fifty-five years ago.
The pattern is screen-printed — a technique that allows for the precise registration of flat colour fields that gives "Project" its distinctive character. The colours are rich and considered: deep teal, warm gold, cream — a palette that is unmistakably late 1960s without feeling dated. The composition is architectural, almost structural, the kind of design that rewards attention the longer you look at it.
"Project" was produced as a furnishing fabric — intended for upholstery, curtains and soft furnishings in the modernist interiors of the late 1960s. Today, framed and displayed as wall art, it reads as a piece of graphic design as much as a textile, and holds its own in any interior that values genuinely beautiful things.
Why Original Heal's Textiles Matter
Original Heal's fabrics from the 1960s are increasingly scarce. The combination of time, use, and the fact that furnishing fabrics were rarely preserved as collectables means that surviving examples in good condition are genuinely rare. A framed panel of Peter McCulloch's "Project" in presentable condition is not merely a decorative object — it is a primary piece of British design history.
For collectors of mid-century modern design, a Heal's fabric from this era sits alongside the best output from Sanderson, Liberty and Hull Traders as evidence of the extraordinary creative energy that characterised British textile design in the 1950s and 1960s. These are not reproductions or limited edition prints. They are the real thing — made in Britain, in 1968, by a designer working at the height of his powers for the country's most important design retailer.
The RetroTime Piece
The example we have sourced is a rare original 1968 "Project" panel by Peter McCulloch for Heal's — presented framed and ready to hang. The colours are rich and the pattern is clearly and beautifully printed, with the characteristic quality of screen-printed Heal's production at its best.
This is not a piece that comes to market often. When good Heal's textiles in this condition appear, they sell quickly to buyers who know exactly what they are looking at.
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If you are looking for specific Heal's fabrics or mid-century modern British textiles and don't see what you need listed, get in touch — we are always sourcing new pieces.
RetroTime specialises in genuine vintage British homewares — wall clocks, textile wall art and lighting from the mid-century modern era. Based in Chelmsford, Essex. Free tracked delivery across the UK.