Laura (Laura Mountney) Ashley (7th September 1925 - 17th September 1985) was a Welsh designer. She became a household name on the strength of her work as a designer and manufacturer of a range of colourful fabrics for clothes and home furnishings. Laura Ashley died in 1985 of a brain hemorrhage suffered ten days after she fell down the stairs of her daughter's English country home on her 60th birthday. Two months after her death, Laura Ashley Holdings went public in a flotation that was 34 times oversubscribed.