Claire de Waard is a Hand Embroidery Artist and Maker currently based in London, UK.

Specialising in straw work, her practice is a fusion of specialist embroidery techniques reframed through the medium of wheat and rye straw, resulting in surfaces and objects at the intersection of design, art and craft. These raw materials, with their tactile textures and golden hues, invite notions of quiet luxury, drawing attention to their modest origins and domestic essence.

Rooted in her multicultural background spanning Brazil, the Netherlands and France, Claire’s work delves into the cultural significance of wheat as a symbol of human sedentism juxtaposed against historic patterns of migration. Her aesthetic narrative is deeply intertwined with domestic practical crafts transcending temporal and geographical boundaries, offering a contemplative exploration of themes such as home, belonging, and cultural identity and transmission.

Claire’s training at the Royal School of Needlework, London, UK (2017) allowed her to get in depth knowledge and skill into hand embroidery, which she fuses to inspiration drawn from basketry and marquetry. She first went on to work in couture fashion for brands brands such as Alexander McQueen and Burberry, working on a high profile projects such as H.R.H The Princess of Wales’ coronation dress. Claire’s practice was featured in Madame Figaro Japon (2022). She was in the same year commissioned to create embroidered life-size bees for the World Health Organisation at COP27, Egypt, by arts studio Invisible Flock, subsequently featuring in the Land Body Ecologies festival at the Wellcome Collection, London, UK (2023). In 2024 she was invited to be a guest tutor at renowned embroidery studio Hand & Lock, London. Her work was recently exhibited at the embroidery collective Bound’s exhibition in London, UK (2025).