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Fabrics, Curtains & Soft Furnishings

Wall hangings, tapestries and curtains... fabric is making a come-back in the home and showing that a little can go a long way. The most difficult task, however, is choosing from among the wide range of designs on today's market. The shimmer of silk or the simplicity of synthetic hair can be used to create a wealth of styles from highly exuberant to minimalist.

If your decoration is to be a statement and you don't mind gaudy colours, furnishing fabrics made in England are a natural choice.
Among today's textile designers, Tricia Guild is the best ambassador of the British look. Since 1970, she has been slowly changing the style of English decorative art with more than 5000 fabrics and 4000 wallpaper designs to her credit. Her sources of inspiration are 18th century classical architectural motifs and English castles. Her "Royal Collection" launched in 2008 is a homage to the interiors of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. Tricia Guild has a wonderful way with colours. Her combinations may be unexpected but they always work - bright pink, turquoise and chartreuse in a juxtaposition of handsome florals, voluptuous arabesques and stripes, in velvet, cotton and taffeta. 

To achieve a more masculine version of English chic, why not choose wool furnishing fabrics for your chairs and sofas. Hound's tooth check, herringbone and tennis stripes will give your Louis XVI wing chairs a manly look.

The textile tradition in France is still very much alive. Chintz, damask and jacquard, all-time favourites when it comes to French furnishing fabrics, are still being produced by fabric manufacturers using traditional methods. Patrick Frey perpetuates this highly refined field of expertise in the firm created by his father Pierre in 1935. Four or five hundred new fabrics are added each year to his collection of 7000 references.  Combining 18th and 19th century motifs, toile de Jouy, Indian prints and brocatelle with the latest materials is the substance of their inventive, eclectic art.

The next step on the agenda when decorating with fabrics is soft furnishings. Tiebacks, tassels and fringes have gained new popularity, lending depth and sophistication to curtains and drapes.

If a classical ambience is not to your taste, you will no doubt appreciate the more sober Japanese-style fabrics. 

Textile designers have a penchant for natural fibres such as abaca, ramie, hemp and banana. Here, there is no ornamentation or gaudy colours. The raw material look predominates. With Marianne Oudin, braided palm and water hyacinth leaves are all the ornament needed while textile designer Lily Latifi has an architectural approach to fabric. Her Japanese panels and screens have an openwork design to "modulate space and shape light". Her designs with their ethereal, poetic transparency are aptly named "Firefly" and "Milky Way". Pietro Seminelli also designs fabric as though it were a textile painting. His panels, either fixed or sliding on curtain rods, are the result of in-depth plastic research into the art of pleating and folding. Linen and palm fibres, interspersed with stainless steel and copper thread, let the light filter through and give a stylised geometrical design to his pleating and folding.

A simple change of textile is enough to completely change the ambience of a room. Giving it a new personality is child's play. Long live fabrics!

Latest News...

| "Tissus russes", Russian fabric exhibition at La Piscine, Museum of Art and Industry, Roubaix-France, until 28th February 2010.
| Pinch > The ever-practical furniture of this British brand is available on their on-line sales site: www.pinchdesign.com
| Bodo Sperlein > British tableware manufacturer Bodo Sperlein is launching into furniture design with its walnut Ribbon chair.

Up until 21st February 2010, the Fabric Museum in Lyon is presenting an original fun exhibition on interactive fabrics as part of their second Biennale de Créations Textiles fair.
Interactive or "smart" fabrics react to the environment, light, heat and contact, or friction with another material. They have a wide variety of applications in numerous fields from domestic use to industry whether the aim is scientific, fun or aesthetic.
The exhibition, focussed on 12 well-known textile designers, has an astonishing, dreamlike quality: Brigitte Amarger, Joanna Berzowska, Florence Bost, Luc Druez, Ying Gao, Maija Lavonen, Sophie Mallebranche, Veronika Moos-Brochhagen, Sandrine Pincemaille, Pietro Seminelli, Elisabeth de Senneville and Carole Simard-Laflamme.

Visit the site of the Lyon Fabric Museum