The British painter Sir Howard Hodgkin – he of the big, emotion-laden brushstrokes – has a long and fruitful association with Designers Guild. Here’s a beautiful new addition to the collaboration that is almost hallucinogenic in its intensity and almost impossible to look at without thinking, why beige? Why indeed? Why would you? Why go for a walk in a desert when you could wander in a tropical paradise?
London’s mayoral elections are not the only exciting event of the day. The June issue of Homes & Gardens also goes on sale….wallow in stunning houses in the Cotwolds, Devon and Hampshire, relaxed dining room schemes, outdoor seating and beautiful rooms inspired by St Ives, natural pools, two breath-taking gardens, inspirational kitchens and bathrooms, expert Q&As, pages of shopping, travel, mouthwatering recipes….oh and a 32-page guide to Dream Living Rooms and a chance to win £1000 to spend at Marston and & Langinger.
On a day like today*, where would you rather be? A Scandinavian-inspired interior, drained of colour, except for endless metres of featureless white painted wood, birch ply and maybe some grey (if you’re lucky). Or one swathed in fabrics emblazoned with more vibrant, saturated colour than Carmen Miranda’s hat. You decide. If it’s the latter visit Voyage Decoration’s mood enhancing site and prepared to be amazed, entranced, overjoyed.
*10 degrees and murky for readers fortunate enough to be in the southern hemisphere
Country is back but not as you might remember it. Bye bye prim florals, corn dollies and wall-to-wall pine, hello large prints, bold stripes and crazy colours. See this stunning scheme – and plenty more – in the Dream Living Rooms supplement published with Homes & Gardens’ June issue on 3 May…
Passionforpattern hero, Kit Kemp, the creative genius behind some of the London’s most stylish hotels (as well as one in New York) – and arguably Britain’s most quietly influential interior designer – has launched an exquisite range of embroidered fabrics with Chelsea Textiles. For inspiration by the barrowload, feast your eyes on the digital brochure and then on her hotels, among others The Haymarket, The Covent Garden and The Soho in London and The Crosby Street in New York. Enjoy…
Never let it be said that the fabric industry is stuck in the past. Look at this; 18th-century bucolic depictions re-invented as a 21st century scene from whatever might be the French equivalent of Friends (Amis, Copains?). It’s the latest bit of lateral thought from those dazzlingly creative minds at Pierre Frey. Cool? It makes the Saatchi Gallery look positively stuck in the mud. And at £156.30 it’s cheaper than a Richard Wilson.
A week ago, passionforpattern was waxing lyrical about fabrics that cost way north of £100 a metre. This week, we’ve been stopped in our tracks, grabbed by the solar plexus, stunned into silence, by a fabric that costs a fraction of that amount. By this. Behold. Venerate. Let the awe wash over you. Not only utterly beguiling but also yours for £30 a metre. It’s called Havana and it’s from Designers Guild. Call us fickle, inconsistent, all over the place. But so what?
We just wonder because Luke Irwin’s new rugs owe more to Tiepolo than tribal textiles, more Italian palazzo than than ikat, more painter’s palette than pucci print. Dawn of a new trend or not, we think they’re terrific…
Tiles can pull in so many directions; mediterranean, alhambra, ali baba….abattoir. But here at passionforpattern we think that patchwork might be a first. They’re from the Navajo range by Neisha Crosland at De Ferranti. What better way to enhance your view when the land next door gets sold for development? 
It’s easy to come over all parsimonious about fabrics that breach the £100 a metre mark. But when it comes to those that you are truly, madly, deeply passionate about, it’s amazing how a little goes a long way, particularly in a simple, pared down room. Take this utterly sublime Keros fabric from Vaughan (yours for a reassuring £120 a metre). What would you need for a blind? Two, three, metres maybe? Save your parsimony for a blind-making kit rather than employing a curtain maker and you have an aesthetic statement that is impossible to put a sensible monetary value on. And certainly more than £400.
