In need of inspiration?

Over 90 showrooms displaying fabrics, wallpaper, furniture, lighting, tiles and accessories will be unveiling new designs from over 500 brands in and around Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour in London between 11 and 16 March next month. As if that wasn’t enough good news for pattern obsessives, you should also know that the event is free and that there is complimentary transport to and from the Kings’ Road (in a fleet of Range Rovers, no less). If you come on Wednesday 14 (the first public day), book yourself a ticket to an exclusive one hour Homes & Gardens event with award-winning garden designer Stephen Woodhams and Joanna Wood, one of Britain’s leading interior designers and Giles Kime, the magazine’s Deputy Editor (who also writes passionforpattern). We’re offering passionforpattern followers tickets at a reduced price of just £10 (normally £15) and they will all receive a seasonal plant from Stephen Woodhams, a 10% discount at Joanna Wood and the latest copy of Homes & Gardens . No there isn’t a catch!. It starts at 11.30 am.  For tickets call 020 7352 1900 or for more details visit the Homes & Gardens website. Tickets are limited, so please book early!

Stripes go horizontal

 

No, no, the decorator didn’t get the wrong end of the stick….look what happens when stripes go the other way. Not only do we think that this look is set to be the biggest thing in wallpaper this year but it’s a textbook example of space-manipulating properties of pattern in general  - and horizontal pattern in particular. The wallpaper’s from Harlequin. For more inspired decorating ideas visit the Homes & Gardens site.

 

This season’s coolest sofa?

Barbara Chandler, journalist, photographer, champion of contemporary design, Homes & Gardens columnist and impassioned Londonphile has dreamt up the Studio Couch, a classic Ercol design upholstered in photographs from Love London, her new book that celebrates life in the world’s most exciting city (£9.99, Annova Books). Is Barbara’s sofa, the shape of things to come? Passionforpattern certainly hopes so. For more Barbaraphernalia at visit www.lovelondon.uk.com.

A breath-taking moment

 

Ok…so this might be just be another fantasy moment. Not just the paperless, clutter-free desk but the uninterrupted view of these stunning Giza Bianco mosaics from Bisazza. At ease….

All we really, really want…

You don’t need passionforpattern to tell you the infinite, transformative possibilities of wallpaper. That’s just one of life’s certainties. But what perhaps you didn’t know is that wallpaper now has the capacity to add an almost mouthwatering, deco-style glamour to a scheme that is somewhere between the back seat of Victoria Beckham’s Bentley Continental and the quilted walls of Rita Hayworth’s dressing room (OK, so we are guessing here…or possibly fantasising). It’s called Metropolis Vinyls 2 from Osborne & Little and Passionforpattern really, really wants some.  And it wants it NOW.

Paradise Found…

 

Even if you could find a house with an uninterrupted view of a pastoral scene like the one depicted in Lewis & Wood’s exquisite new Royal Oak fabric, the chances are that it would be prohibitively expensive. Or if you could afford it, you would be gazumped. Or the local farmer would have just flogged the pastoral scene for development into a retail park, a housing estate and a six lane bypass. Far better to create the same view for yourself with the sort of design which reminds you that fabric is about so much more than curtains and upholstery – it’s an opportunity to create your own private paradise.

 

Visual Prozac

There are few greater testaments to the mood-lifting properties of pattern than the new Kimono collection from Designers Guild that will be launched this Spring. It’s the sort of thrilling, life enhancing, space transforming combination of  pattern and colour that makes you realise the reason that beautifully-designed pattern exists. And the reason that passionforpattern gets out of bed in the morning.

The Magnificent Seven

While the idea of pattern on the floor is a subject close to passionforpattern’s heart, the reality of achieving it is more of a challenge. With a few notable exceptions there’s a gaping chasm between disturbingly cheerful rugs of distinctly ungenerous, doormat-like proportions and disturbingly expensive (if very beautiful) Persian rugs. But The Rug Company has stepped into the breach, helping to fill the chasm with these seven beautiful designs. If you are unable to resist them, they are yours from a very reasonable £195 to a far from unreasonable £1395.

Dufy…

…did it, Dali did it, Matisse did it, even David Hockney designed a fabric – with really stunning results. This Punchinella design that he adapted from a set he created for Ravel’s L’Enfant et Les Sortileges in the early 1980s has been re-issued (and re-scaled and re-coloured) by his friend Celia Birtwell. With Hockney mania set to grip London next week with the opening of A Bigger Picture at The Royal Academy, here’s an opportunity for patternistas to make their own tribute to Britain’s greatest living artist and fabric designer manque..

Blowing in the wind….part 1

At passionforpattern something in our bones tells us that the world of textiles is on the cusp of an exciting revolution. A loosening up. A shaking down. A backlash against pre-crunch pomp and bluster. Its manifestation is a new wave of fabrics that are less about decoration and more about mood, ideas, humour even, from those with the most modest prices to the maddest. Over the course of the year, we’ll be hunting them down and showing them off, starting with this fabulous new brand Scion that will be available in John Lewis from early March. Prices will be around £25 a metre. A happy new year? A completely delirious one, more like….