Caroline Z Hurley and Madewell Introduce Splashy Prints for Spring

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Caroline Z Hurley Is Bringing Splashy Prints to Madewell for Spring

We talked to the design creative about her warm-weather-friendly clothing collab, motherhood, and more

April 13, 2023

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Welcoming spring with a wardrobe refresh is easy with the latest collaboration between Madewell and textile designer, painter, and interiors guru Caroline Z Hurley. While this partnership with the retailer marks Caroline’s first foray into clothing, she’s known for dressing dwellings with thoughtful fabrics and prints from her namesake label. Well-versed in home offerings that include easy-to-style tablecloths, quilts, wallpaper, and more, Caroline’s colorful approach to design has always been about subtle charm.

Caroline strikes a pose in her camp shirt and wide-leg pants.

Rob Northway

“We love to partner with brands who have a shared design value,” says Joyce Lee, senior vice president of design at Madewell. “I was drawn to Caroline’s unique and easy prints and inspired to create a warm-weather-essentials capsule to showcase her work. Her hand-painted prints execute beautifully on swim and beach-friendly cover-ups, creating the perfect grab-and-go pieces for summer.” So while you may be racking your brain for the best Mother’s Day or graduation gifts, look no further. After all, the breezy collection is full of easy-to-wear pieces—from swimwear and coordinating sets to a charming sun hat and yoga mat to match.

Below, we spoke with Caroline about her collaboration with Madewell, her design inspirations, and which pieces in the collection have become her personal favorites.

Architectural Digest: This collection is full of fun prints and wearable silhouettes. What were the main inspirations or guiding factors for the designs?

Caroline Z Hurley: For this collection, I was inspired by the alphabet. I wanted for there to be two stark patterns: one that was block printed, sort of the ethos of my brand, and then another one that was a bit louder and bolder. A lot of what I do at my brand, CZH, is use basic shapes. I have an alphabet of 26 characters—triangles, rectangles, squares, circles—and I arranged them in different formats. So I use that language in almost all of what we do for our block-printed designs, and I wanted to bring that to the Madewell collection, both with a block-printed print and also with a new kind of language, which was this painterly one that I had created. So I painted 26 different characters and I arranged them similarly as I do with the block-print ones.

In what ways did you approach designing these clothing pieces and accessories differently than how you’ve approached designing your home decor offerings?

For interiors and fabric by the yard, when someone is buying fabric for drapery or for upholstery, it’s typically something that they live with for years and years. For interiors, it’s a different kind of design that I’m thinking about, it’s usually a little bit more subtle—something more grounded that you want to live in and be in. For clothing, it was really fun because I was thinking about it as something that could be bolder. So that’s where the painterly print came in because I was like, Let's go big and have a real statement for part of this collaboration.

Caroline’s Madewell collection is full of bold prints to get you excited for warm weather activities. Catch some sun in this bubble crop top and board shorts set.

Frances Tulk-Hart

Do you think that becoming a mom of two has influenced your approach to design differently?

It’s so fun to have their presence be heavily involved with these two prints. I was pregnant with my second baby when I started doing the designs and my first baby was about a year and a half. I feel like both of them were very influential in the collaboration because there’s a playfulness to the designs that I think you can feel. I’ll never forget, I was printing one of the stamps for the collaboration, and my baby, June, was kicking in my belly. You can kind of tell that the quality of the stamps in some of the prints are a little bit shaky, and that’s for my children.

We know it’s tough to choose, but what are the pieces and prints from the collection you’re most proud of?

I love the block-printed dress because I think it can really be worn by anybody, anywhere. I’m really proud because I feel like the print and the silhouette go nicely together, and it can really play a lot of different roles. For me, right now I’m nursing, and it’s the perfect thing with children because I can use part of the dress as a little napkin, there’s so much fabric! The other thing I’m really proud of is this Madewell collaboration is the first time CZH has ever done a digital print with our original designs. So it was really fun and I think a real success to see the block-printed design be translated to a digital format on cotton gauze.

Who is the audience you had in mind for this collection? Who are you hoping will want to wear and love these pieces?

I really think it’s for everyone. I really think that everyone can find a way to make these pieces their own. My mom was wearing it the other day, I have a younger niece who is wearing it, my age group—I really think that it can speak to all.