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Design Milk’s Friday Five features Toast CEO Suzie de Rohan Willner discussing five influences, including Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, the Glass House and William Mitchell. She also describes Toast projects centered on community, performance and renewing garments; the interview presents her personal perspective, not a new company policy or product announcement.
Toast CEO Suzie de Rohan Willner has shared five artistic and architectural influences, from textile artist Anni Albers to architect Philip Johnson’s Glass House, in a Design Milk Friday Five interview that also highlights recent Toast projects. Her account links interests in experimentation and craft with the clothing brand’s repair and reuse work, while offering her own perspective rather than announcing a new initiative.
De Rohan Willner names Albers, Ruth Asawa, the Glass House, Isamu Noguchi and the sculptural doors at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral among her inspirations. She says Albers showed how textiles could move from traditional craft into the realm of respected art, and describes Albers’s practice as beginning with direct experimentation with materials. Asawa’s looped-wire sculptures appeal to her for their contrast between apparent lightness and strength.
She describes the Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, as an example of architecture that blurs the boundary between interior and landscape. Noguchi, she says, inspires her because he worked across sculpture, furniture, lanterns and gardens without being confined to one medium. De Rohan Willner’s stepfather, William Mitchell, designed the cathedral’s sculptural doors. She credits him with treating concrete as an artistic material and says his work combined close attention to a place’s history with a modern response.
The interview also recounts several Toast projects. For its Spring/Summer 2026 collection, the brand held a locally produced luncheon on farmland near Llansteffan Castle in Wales, which the source identifies as Toast’s birthplace. A Spring/Summer 2025 event at London’s Somerset House paired installations with a dance performance by Francesca Matthys and Masumi Saito. For the first Toast Renewed By capsule, Dutch textile artist Meta Struycken made eight full-size pieces from returned or damaged Toast items and fabric remnants, using embroidery, appliqué and quilting. The Fall/Winter 2026 collection, titled “Marking the Turn,” draws on seasonal gatherings and folk traditions.
Craft and Repair Shape Toast’s Work
The interview makes a connection between de Rohan Willner’s stated artistic interests and Toast’s approach to garments. The source says she was struck by Lee Krasner’s practice of breaking up earlier works and using their fragments in new compositions. She sees a parallel with Toast Repair, Renewed and Reworn, through which damaged or unwanted clothing can be mended, altered or reused rather than discarded.
That connection helps explain the creative rationale the CEO gives for the brand’s repair-focused work: existing materials are not only something to preserve, but also a starting point for making. The Struycken capsule is a concrete example described in the interview. The piece does not provide sales figures, environmental measurements or evidence of the programs’ overall impact, so it does not establish how much clothing they divert from waste.
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Five Influences Behind the Interview
Design Milk frames the Friday Five as a profile of the people, places and projects shaping de Rohan Willner’s outlook. Its introduction says she grew up in a creative family and connects her interest in craft with conversations about art at Toast, including an introduction to Krasner’s work by creative director Laura Shippey. Those details come from the publication’s account and the interview, not from independent reporting included in the source material.
The five inspirations span disciplines: textiles, wire sculpture, architecture, sculpture and public art. Together, they reflect de Rohan Willner’s stated interest in how materials can be transformed and how design can relate to its surroundings. The article also places that perspective beside Toast’s recent collection launches and events, but does not report a change in the company’s leadership or business strategy.
“She believed design is learned through direct experimentation with material. She asked what the material wanted to do before asking how it should look.”
— Suzie de Rohan Willner on Anni Albers, in Design Milk
No Impact Figures in the Interview
The source does not give sales, participation or environmental impact data for Toast Repair, Renewed or Reworn. It also does not specify how many garments the broader programs handle, beyond saying Struycken created eight full-size pieces for the first Toast Renewed By capsule. The interview presents selected projects and personal views; it does not state whether the initiatives will expand or whether further artist collaborations are planned.
Future Collections and Repair Work
The source describes Toast’s Fall/Winter 2026 collection as themed around seasonal rituals and gatherings, but does not give a launch date or further release details. It also offers no schedule for additional Toast Renewed By capsules or other events. Readers can expect further information from Toast or Design Milk if the company announces new projects, but the interview itself does not confirm any forthcoming dates or commitments.
Key Questions
What is the news about Suzie de Rohan Willner?
Design Milk published a Friday Five interview in which the Toast CEO discusses five artistic and architectural inspirations and describes several recent Toast projects.
Who are de Rohan Willner’s five inspirations?
She names Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, the Glass House, Isamu Noguchi and the sculptural doors at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, designed by her stepfather William Mitchell.
What is Toast Renewed By?
In the project described in the interview, Dutch textile artist Meta Struycken made eight full-size garments using returned or damaged Toast items and fabric remnants. The pieces use handcraft methods including embroidery, appliqué and quilting.
Did Toast announce a new repair program?
No new program is announced in the source. De Rohan Willner discusses existing initiatives—Toast Repair, Renewed and Reworn—and relates them to her interest in reuse and creative work with materials.
Source: rss
