Toile

Toile is having a resurgence right now and I have the above fabric for one of my clients right now. She loves powder and duck egg blues. We not going as extreme as this though - just for some curtains...
Photograph via Manuel Canovas.

Anne Grafton from GP & J Baker

Baker Lifestyle - Beachcomber Collection

Mulberry

GP and J Baker

Threads

I went to a great presentation last night. It was with Anne Grafton, Managing Director and Head of Design for the GP and J Baker Group of Companies in England. Within the group's umbrella are fabric houses GP and J Baker, Baker Lifestyle, Threads and Mulberry.

Anne was delightful and she gave us a deep appreciation of the great history behind GP and J Baker. There were some great stories - including visiting the Queen three months ago to choose her latest fabrics. Yes, the Queen still chooses all her interior fabrics for her royal living quarters and Anne showed us her choices. Incidentally GP and J Baker have the royal warrant for their products. There were also stories about limited fabric runs of incredibly detailed, embroidered and appliqued fabric (in result very, very expensive) and having a customer come in the showroom on the day of release and wanting 50m...amazing.

It is always inspiring to hear a great presentation and walk away impressed. I haven't used much of these products before, however, knowing more about them, I think I now will.

New Work - Reupholstering

Chair - Before

After - in Leather

Sofa - Before (we had two of these)

After - Sofa One

After - Sofa Two

Armchair - Before

Armchair - After

I'm a fan of re-upholstering existing furniture. It is environmentally friendly, you can choose the fabric and it is hard to find good furniture that tick all the boxes these days.

These clients were open to buying new furniture - however, we realised that these pieces fitted well in the existing interiors and all were still comfortable.

So we re-holstered them all (a great upholsterer is essential and I have one of those) as well as improving the insides with new foam and feather. They were better than new when they came back and the clients very happy.

Photographs by Charlotte Minty.