OUR STORY
Angela Sandiforth founded Textile23 after 15 years working in textile sales - across Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada, and directly alongside the architects and interior designers specifying fabrics on live projects every day.
That experience made one thing clear: the people with the deepest understanding of how textiles perform in real spaces were rarely the people designing them. The specifiers, the project architects, the designers managing tight timelines and exacting client briefs, they knew exactly what a fabric needed to do. But the fabrics they were choosing from had mostly been designed far from that reality.
Textile23 was created to close that distance. To put design intelligence where the specification knowledge already lives. To build a studio that works with local designers not as a marketing exercise, but as the actual method.
The business is run independently and kept deliberately lean. Every fabric is developed without compromise. Every client relationship is direct. There is no layer between the person who made the decisions about this material and the person specifying it into a project.
"I wanted to build something I could stand behind completely. Where the material integrity, the design decisions, and the commercial relationships were all things I'd chosen consciously. That's what Textile23 is." Angela Sandiforth
Some materials don't need reinventing. They need someone willing to do them properly.
Wool has been specified into interiors for centuries. It is naturally flame retardant, acoustically absorbent, thermoregulating, and biodegradable at end of life. It ages well. It performs. And yet the most design-considered wool textiles available to Australian architects and interior designers were largely coming from the other side of the world - designed by people who had never sat in a briefing for a Sydney apartment, a Melbourne hotel, or an Auckland workplace fitout.
That is the gap Textile23 was built to fill.
Textile23 is a Sydney-based wool textile studio.
We design 100% wool fabrics for architects, interior designers, and specifiers, developed in collaboration with mills in the UK and New Zealand, and created for the full life of a considered project.
Our debut collection, Persona, launched in 2024. Every decision made along the way from material sourcing, colourway development, sample production, was shaped by one question: would a designer who understands real projects trust this fabric?
We believe they will.
Built independently. On purpose.
Material honesty We work exclusively in 100% wool because we believe in choosing materials that perform, endure, and leave no ambiguity about what they are.
Circular practice Our samples are made in Sydney. When you're done with them, we'll take them back. Every scrap is repurposed for colour matching or regenerated for client colour cards. Fabric cores are returned to our manufacturers. We account for waste at every stage.
Collaboration We work with designers who are actively shaping spaces, not as brand ambassadors, but as genuine creative partners. The fabrics are better for it.
An inclusive industry Textile23 is built on the belief that the design industry is strongest when it reflects the full breadth of the community it serves. We are committed to working with collaborators and partners who share that view - across gender, background, culture, and experience.
Ready to specify?
Request a sample of Persona and see the material in your hands. If you're working on a project and want to discuss specification, we're easy to reach.