Growing up in a creative family, Toast CEO Suzie de Rohan Willner developed a deep appreciation for art, design, and craftsmanship. That interest still shapes how she approaches her work, sometimes in unexpected ways. When Toast Creative Director Laura Shippey introduced her to the work of Lee Krasner, de Rohan Willner was struck not only by the artist’s confidence, but by her willingness to tear apart earlier works and transform their fragments into entirely new compositions.
For de Rohan Willner, Krasner’s approach has a clear parallel with Toast’s own commitment to extending the life of existing materials. Through initiatives including Toast Repair, Renewed, and Reworn, damaged and unwanted garments become a starting point for visible mending, creative alteration, and reuse rather than waste. It’s an outlook that reflects de Rohan Willner’s broader interest in craft, experimentation, and finding new possibilities in familiar materials.
Photography courtesy of Toast
Today, Suzie de Rohan Willner joins us for Friday Five to share the artists, architecture, and personal influences that continue to shape her perspective, along with a look at several recent Toast projects.
Suzie de Rohan Willner’s 5 Inspirations
Photography by Suzie de Rohan Willner
1. Anni Albers
I am inspired by how Anni Albers transformed textiles from a traditional craft into a respected art form. She believed design is learned through direct experimentation with material. She asked what the material wanted to do before asking how it should look.
Photography by Suzie de Rohan Willner
2. Ruth Asawa
Ruth Asawa’s looped-wire sculptures reimagine an industrial material as something organic and seemingly soft. I love that tension between strength and lightness—forms that feel weightless yet are anything but fragile.
Photography by Suzie de Rohan Willner
3. The Glass House
Architect Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, dissolves the boundary between architecture and landscape. Its full-height glass walls create a continuous conversation between interior life and the natural world outside—a reminder that the best design frames what already exists.
4. Isamu Noguchi
Sculptor Isamu Noguchi moved fluidly between disciplines—stone sculpture, furniture, paper lanterns, public gardens—without ever losing his voice. I am inspired by that refusal to be confined to a single medium.
5. The sculptural doors at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral
William Mitchell was my stepfather, and a passionate pioneer of concrete as an artistic medium, with a brutalist, tactile, craft-led aesthetic. He researched a place’s historical resonance deeply, then answered it with a juxtaposed modernity that takes your breath away. His courage in his work has stayed with me.
Recent Projects by Toast
Photography courtesy of Toast
A Shared Table in Wales
This past spring, to launch Toast’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection, A Shared Table, we returned to Wales, the brand’s birthplace, for a locally produced luncheon with members of our community on farmland surrounding Llansteffan Castle. As the wind blew across the hillside, reminding us of the inseparable bond between landscape and community, guests wrapped themselves in Toast blankets to keep cozy.
Photography courtesy of Toast
A Lightness of Being at Somerset House
To celebrate the Spring/Summer 2025 collection, A Lightness of Being, we gathered members of the Toast community at Somerset House in London to witness a series of installations expressing the weightlessness of flight, opportunity in experimentation, and freedom in play. Dancers Francesca Matthys and Masumi Saito, dressed head-to-toe in the collection, performed a piece that explored how clothing, creativity, and gesture intersect.
Photography courtesy of Toast
Toast Renewed By Meta Struycken
I love these pieces by Dutch textile artist Meta Struycken, whose work often explores miniature garments. For the launch of the first Toast Renewed By capsule, Meta designed eight full-size pieces using returned and damaged Toast items and fabric remnants from her studio, demonstrating the creative power of repair and renewal. Traditional handcraft techniques, like embroidery, appliqué, and quilting, extend the life of garments and reframe repair as an art form in itself.
Photography courtesy of Toast
Marking the Turn: FW26 Collection
The theme of our Fall/Winter 2026 collection is Marking the Turn, where we consider the rituals and rites that signal our movement through the seasons, particularly marked by moments of gathering. Each piece represents a different moment in the transition from summer to autumn to winter, translating the language of folk traditions through handcraft techniques, color palettes, and forms that reference the simple functionality of the past.
