ALLY CAPELLINO X MARINA WILLER

July 12, 2025

When you enter Marina Willer’s house there is an impression of colours bouncing in light. There is no murkiness. White paint on the floors and walls ensures that the sharp and fruity colours bounce without weight around the airy space. The walls are covered in graphic imagery and artworks produced by her or her peers and it feels fresh and modern without sacrificing the relaxed comfort of a family home.

Partner at Pentagram and multi award winning designer and filmmaker. Her unstoppable creative mind and is constantly evolving ideas. We are excited to host a personal project “Overlooked” by Marina, at Calvert Avenue and invite you for drinks to celebrate on 17th July at 6.30pm.

OVERLOOKED is a celebration of London’s manhole covers and their often intricate designs. Found across the city from Brixton to Kensington these humble objects are the gatekeepers to a mysterious underground world.  Many of the covers were installed by 19th and early 20th-century utility companies who provided London residents with new services such as water and sewage, gas and electricity, telegraph and telephones through a network of subterranean tunnels.

Previously shown at during London Design Week at the V & A, they will have a very different impact in a much smaller venue.

We had a few questions for Marina

ALLY - What made you interested in these hard working manhole and other coverings?

MARINA - Ahh well, they’re everywhere on roads and pavements and we literally overlook some really quite decorative objects every day. By injecting colour they become a lot more noticeable.

ALLY - And did you do the rubbings?

MARINA - Yes my team and I went out and got down on our knees, mostly around Notting Hill. Some of them took quite a long time to achieve.

ALLY - What is your absolute favourite colour and secondly your favourite combination.

MARINA - Light pink paper with vibrant pink and green or light blue paper with blue and orange.

ALLY - The screen printing is just gorgeous and the papers that they are on make them so rich and tangible. They are so real, as opposed to something on a digital screen. How did that come about?

MARINA - I love texture and colour and the analogue world. Making things and printing, painting. I always loved street covers, as designers do...

but bringing fluoro colours to them gives a very different feel. They become decorative and a celebration of such industrial objects with an explosion of joy.

And she came back with a few for Ally

MARINA - How do you choose the colours of your products? are they integral to the form design process, or does that get chosen once form is established?

ALLY - oh that’s making me think. Sometimes if it’s a new material or leather that I find then it could be the colour that gets me going. That’s what happened with the hemp fabric. The sample was in the bright green and that somehow dictated the way that the designs turned out – a bit cartoonish. But other times, if it’s a product that we always run then recolouring is really fun. We love mixing up the zip colours to get more life out of the colour combos.

MARINA - How do you anticipate the colours for each season? Is there a typical AC (signature) palette?

ALLY - I think there is, but it’s so innate to me that I find it difficult to describe. I love close tones and like threads and zip colours to be a bit lighter and a bit less saturated than the main bag colour. Unless it’s a contrast in which case it’s what makes it sing. I don’t rule out any colour, every colour can be right at some point.

MARINA - Do you always signal your brand on products as AC?

ALLY - Funny you should ask that. We are just considering this as some of the team think we could be a bit clearer about who we are and that our name should be visible. We may be heading for a change.

What do you think.

OVERLOOKED is at

9 Calvert Avenue

16th July 2025 - August 10th

Join us for cocktails kindly provided by @weareghostlabs on Thursday 17th July 6:30-8:30pm.