With a passion for pushing the boundaries of design and a commitment to supporting local artists and manufacturers, Charlotte Raffo has built a business that not only produces unique, story-rich textiles and wall coverings but also challenges the conventional way of working in the industry.

From paying artists an unprecedented 20% royalty to ensuring all production happens within 100 miles of her Leeds studio, Charlotte's journey is one of creativity, resilience, and a deep respect for craftsmanship. Read on to discover how an early fascination with radical design, a chance conversation, and a desire to do things differently shaped The Monkey Puzzle Tree into an award-winning brand.

You founded The Monkey Puzzle Tree in 2017, aiming to collaborate with Yorkshire artists to create unique textiles and wall coverings. What motivated you to establish this venture, and how has your vision evolved over the years?

Despite being brought up in a family of engineers and scientists, I’ve been obsessed with interior design and textiles from a very young age.

I remember reading about Timorous Beasties as a teenager, and thinking that what they were doing at the time with their radical fabrics and wallpapers, in a world of mediocrity, was amazing. I don’t think I ever believed that that was something I could do.

A chance conversation with an artist friend, Sarah Thornton, who wanted to create fabric designs from her work gave me the initial idea for the business. It was also Sarah’s idea to pay the artists a royalty on sales and create a passive income for the artists.

My past experiences, both working in a local tannery, and as a textile buyer sourcing internationally, have lead me to be very passionate about sourcing locally. I would say that my vision has only strengthened over time, with an ever stronger commitment to working with local mills and artists.

As I’ve become more confident I feel more empowered to push the boundaries of design.

Your commitment to ethical practices includes paying artists a 20% royalty and manufacturing products within 100 miles of your Leeds studio. How do these principles influence your design process and business operations?

In all honesty the 20% royalty is quite a challenge for the business! I picked that figure without too much thought when I first started the business, but I’m determined to make it work.

The luxury of running your own business is that that you can do things how you want, though this doesn’t always make life easy. But if I wanted compromise and an easier life I could get a job!

Manufacturing within 100 miles of our Leeds studio is very important to me. This goes back to my first job working in a tannery in Leeds creating surface effects on leather for luxury leather brands.

That job was an incredible learning (and life) experience, but the tannery closed in 2006 with the loss of around 280 jobs, and with it decades of skills and knowhow, as most of the workforce were forced to leave the industry or move abroad.

So I’m really passionate about supporting our remaining mills.

Sometimes this restricts the design process - For one of our fabrics I wanted to do embroidery but this wasn’t possible, so we had to look at other ways to create the design.

But I love restrictions, I think they make you work harder and come up with a more interesting and unique end product.

Your 'All Tomorrow's Futures' fabric, created with lino cut artist Alexis Snell, received a Design Guild Mark in 2022. Can you share the inspiration and collaborative process behind this design?

‘All Tomorrow’s Futures’ was born over a phone call with Alexis during lockdown. We had a sense of feeling powerless, but wanting to celebrate what was good about our world.

Drawing inspiration from ubiquitous designs like the Willow Pattern which have a story and mythology behind them, we told a story in print, inspired by the beauty and fragility of our natural world.

Alexis carved the design in a small scale on lino, and then I worked with the printers on scaling the design up and fitting it to a rotary printing screen.

I decided to take on the challenge of creating a textile from scratch, so I worked with a tiny local heritage mill to create the beautifully textured base fabric from cotton and linen yarns sourced from Europe.

I worked on the colours, wanting them to be inspired by nature, but not necessarily in a neutral way. I remember peeling an orange and looking at the contrast between the outside and the inside of the peel and thinking that that was the perfect combination for the fabric.

We used Yorkshire made water based inks for the printing, so that as far as possible it is a truly local fabric.

Reflecting on your journey, from your background in textile design to receiving multiple prestigious awards, what advice would you offer to emerging designers aiming to make their mark in the industry?

I would say don’t rush to do everything straightaway.

Life is a winding path, and the experiences and contacts you pick up on the way, even from seemingly unrelated places, can be invaluable. I didn’t launch The Monkey Puzzle Tree until I was 38.

Despite being obsessed with design and interiors from a young age - I actually did my degree in Colour Chemistry as my family didn’t consider design a valid path into work.

But this background combined with my other experiences - working in a tannery, and as a buyer and in product development and design, have helped me look at things in a different way so I don’t regret my alternative path into the industry.

Collaboration is at the heart of The Monkey Puzzle Tree. What do you look for in an artist or designer when deciding to work together on a new piece?

Our collaborations are true collaborations - the artist and I work together on a design from the start, and the end result is completely different than what either of us would have come up with on our own.

I love to take an unlikely starting point and turn it into more than just a flat print - something with real depth and meaning, where the texture and material is important as the design itself.

When choosing artists I’ve found that it’s helpful to set boundaries, almost to make things deliberately difficult to push creativity in a new direction.

Firstly, I only work with artists who are based in Yorkshire. This is partly because I feel that outside of London in general, and in Yorkshire there are far less creative opportunities and it’s much harder to make your mark so I want to represent our region.

Secondly, I prefer to work with artists who don’t have a surface pattern background and haven’t done too much commercial work.

I really don’t want to follow trends so I like to pick someone who has been developing a pure style, maybe for a couple of decades. Something that is apart from trends, that can truly stand on its own and look like them. The enjoyment for me is in finding a way to best represent the essence of that art in product and also the challenge of creating a repeat and colours that work.

I find excitement in creating from the unlikely.

Interview by Johnny Larran, 2025.