Sfera - Milan 2015

We were so pleased to have our Aerial fabrics used by Sfera again for their feature at Milan. This year they showed a new range of furniture for children designed by Shigeru Mashiro and made by Kyoto master woodworker Naomi Toda.

The Sfera showroom is always an oasis of calm serenity and the new pieces are exquisite - beautiful organic shapes with lovely use of different woods. It is no surprise that Monocle listed the collection among their highlights of Milan.

You can read more about the pieces on Sfera's magazine here.

Hitch Mylius

The Hitch Mylius factory is a magical place. Housed in a beautiful reconditioned 1950's industrial building in Enfield, it is a real working factory with a wonderful team of specialist craftsmen.

Although much of Hitch Mylius's upholstery is done in plain and textured fabrics they are masters in pattern matching. This is Mustafa (above) cutting out the pattern pieces for their hm46 chair in our Totley fabric.

The precision is extended to every detail - this is Trevor measuring the buttoning and giving the chair a final check before the arms are added.

For details on the Hitch Mylius pop-up at the Malmaison Hotel in Charterhouse Square during Clerkenwell design Week please see their news page.

For more details on the Hitch Mylius product ranges please see their website.

Stanley Spencer - Sandham Memorial Chapel

We went the other day to have another look at the Stanley Spencer paintings in the Sandham Memorial Chapel at Boughclere. It is a magical place - you really sense Spencer at his most visionary and his most humdrum at the same time. And I guess that is precisely the point. 

The paintings fill the walls of the chapel entirely and feel like Renaissance frescoes. They all are about the day to day details of Spencer's life during the First World War - first as a hospital orderly in Bristol and then later on the Salonika front. They record the minute everyday routines of jam sandwiches for hospital tea and washing out lockers. There are none of the horrors of war that Spencer undoubtedly witnessed here, and yet you feel that the process of painting them must have been a really therapeutic one for Spencer.

Spencer always pays meticulous detail to textures in his painting and I love the way he depicts textiles. You can see it particularly in the paintings of the sacking aprons the orderlies are wearing in the painting above. He really understands the texture and feel of the fabric.


There is a great article about the paintings on the Guardian website here, and details of the chapel on the National Trust website.

Photos: John Hammond - National Trust.

Artek 402

This is the iconic Artek 402 chair designed by Alvar Aalto in 1933 and upholstered in our Totley fabric (A side). It is amazing how clean and contemporary the design still looks.

Niels Moller at Two Columbia Road

I love the elegance and poise of these Niels Moller dining chairs which are upholstered here with the B side of our Totley fabric.

They are from Two Columbia Road - a beautiful mid century furniture showroom with a very well curated selection.

I love the deep glossy wood and the sinuous curves.

Emmanuelle Hegaret

One of the things I find most exciting about our upholstery fabric is seeing how it ends up being used.

The beautiful chair here was upholstered in our Wrekin fabric by Emmanuelle Hegaret at her atelier in Brittany.

I love the way that the Wrekin pattern wraps around the curved back - and using the reverse face on the back of the chair is a really nice touch.

I also really like the way that Emmanuelle has styled this shoot - you can see more of her work here.

Finishing school

Finishing is anything that is done to the fabric once it is woven. When the fabric comes off the loom it is called 'loomstate' or sometimes 'grey cloth' and it is usually quite stiff and taught. As soon as it is washed or steamed the fibres start to relax and it starts to feel like proper cloth.

A few weeks ago we went up to visit one of the Finishers that we use. They do anything and everything from washing and scouring to pressing and steaming, coating and cropping to milling and dying. 

I loved the 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' feel of all the machines, with all their buttons and levers. Lots of fantastic sounds and smells as well as the bolts of fabric run through all the processes. 

And I also loved the gigantic scale of everything - this is a huge vat of liquid soap which is kept warm at all times to keep the soap from solidifying. A really fascinating day out!