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Design Milk’s Friday Five profile features Toast CEO Suzie de Rohan Willner discussing five influences, including Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa and Philip Johnson’s Glass House. She also describes recent Toast projects, from a Wales gathering for the Spring/Summer 2026 collection to a capsule made with returned and damaged garments.
Design Milk’s Friday Five profile features Toast CEO Suzie de Rohan Willner discussing five artistic and architectural influences, including Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa and the Glass House, alongside recent projects by the clothing brand. The profile connects her interest in experimentation and craftsmanship with Toast initiatives that reuse, repair and alter garments.
De Rohan Willner names textile artist Anni Albers, sculptor Ruth Asawa, architect Philip Johnson’s Glass House, sculptor Isamu Noguchi and the sculptural doors at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral among her inspirations. She says Albers helped establish textiles as a respected art form and valued learning through direct work with materials. Asawa’s looped-wire sculptures appeal to her for combining strength with a sense of lightness.
She describes the Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, as a building whose full-height glass walls connect indoor life with the surrounding landscape. Noguchi’s work across sculpture, furniture, paper lanterns and gardens also resonates with her. The cathedral doors have a family connection: William Mitchell, the artist behind them, was her stepfather. De Rohan Willner praises his use of concrete and his combination of research into a place’s history with modern design.
The profile also covers Toast projects. For its Spring/Summer 2026 collection, A Shared Table, the brand returned to Wales for a locally produced luncheon on farmland around Llansteffan Castle. For a Spring/Summer 2025 event at Somerset House in London, dancers Francesca Matthys and Masumi Saito performed in the collection as part of installations exploring flight, experimentation and play, according to the report.
De Rohan Willner highlights a Toast Renewed capsule by Dutch textile artist Meta Struycken. Struycken created eight full-size pieces using returned and damaged Toast items and fabric remnants from her studio, with techniques including embroidery, appliqué and quilting. The report also describes Toast’s Fall/Winter 2026 collection, Marking the Turn, which draws on seasonal gatherings, folk traditions and practical forms from the past.
How Craft Shapes Toast’s Projects
The profile offers a view of how a retail brand’s creative leadership draws on fine art, architecture and personal history. De Rohan Willner links Albers’s material experimentation and Krasner’s reuse of earlier work to Toast’s repair and renewal efforts, framing repair as creative work as well as a way to extend a garment’s use.
That connection is relevant to readers interested in how fashion brands present reuse and craftsmanship. Toast Repair, Renewed and Reworn are identified in the report as initiatives involving damaged or unwanted garments through mending, alteration and reuse. The profile describes the brand’s stated approach and projects; it does not provide figures on how many garments they affect or quantify their environmental impact.
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From Krasner to Garment Repair
The report says de Rohan Willner grew up in a creative family and developed an appreciation for art, design and craftsmanship. Toast Creative Director Laura Shippey introduced her to the work of Lee Krasner. De Rohan Willner says she was struck by Krasner’s confidence and by her practice of taking apart earlier works and using fragments in new compositions.
She sees a parallel between that approach and Toast’s efforts to work with existing materials. The article presents this as her interpretation of the connection, then sets it alongside the brand’s named repair and reuse initiatives. Its focus is a personal selection of influences and projects, rather than a company announcement about a new policy or program.
“She asked what the material wanted to do before asking how it should look.”
— Suzie de Rohan Willner, on Anni Albers
What the Profile Does Not Measure
The Design Milk article does not give publication dates for the profile or most of the projects it describes. It names Toast’s repair, renewal and reuse initiatives but provides no participation, production or environmental impact figures. The article also does not explain how many returned or damaged items were available for Struycken’s capsule, or whether the eight pieces were produced for sale.
The project descriptions and views on artistic influence are presented through de Rohan Willner’s account. The source does not include independent assessments of the projects or responses from the artists and venues involved.
Toast’s Upcoming Collection Plans
The source describes Toast’s Fall/Winter 2026 collection, Marking the Turn, as centered on seasonal rituals and gatherings, using handcraft, color and forms inspired by everyday function. It does not give a release date, sales details or further event plans. The profile also sets out no next milestone for Toast Renewed or its repair initiatives, so further developments are not specified in the report.
Key Questions
Who is Suzie de Rohan Willner?
She is the CEO of Toast, the clothing brand featured in the Design Milk profile.
Which five influences does she discuss?
She names Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, the Glass House, Isamu Noguchi and the sculptural doors at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.
What is Toast Renewed?
In the report, it is a Toast initiative that includes a capsule by Meta Struycken. The artist made eight full-size pieces using returned and damaged Toast items and fabric remnants.
What does the profile say about Toast’s Fall/Winter 2026 collection?
The collection is called Marking the Turn. The report says it draws on seasonal rituals, gatherings, folk traditions and practical forms from the past.
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