Blog

Second in our series of #WallpaperWednesday blogs about iconic wallpapers.

Timorous Beasties founders Ali McAuley and Paul Simmons have some pretty high-brow ambitions for their designs. ‘They are devoted to how…a universal connection between art, nature and society…impacts as pattern design in our daily experience of furnished spaces.’

Yes I’m sure. But I like them best when they surprise a laugh.  

Orla Kiely’s rounded leaf pattern, Stem, is so popular it functions as a trade mark. 

It can be found on wares from notebooks to mugs to cushions.  It even featured on a Citroen car!

So why did her design become such a classic? 

Silk. Silky. Silken.

We use the words to describe everything from chocolate to shampoo to a persuasive tone of voice. 

It’s a wonderfully sensuous description whether applying to touch, taste, sight or hearing. It conjures up images of something smooth, lustrous, soft, fine, flowing, touchable, luxurious.

Everything that silk is.  

Well, actually, not everything ...

Which are the Good, the Bad or the Ugly?

I ask because sometimes it’s impossible to know what you want until you see what you don’t…

There are loads of exciting inspirational design fairs from the vast and venerable Ideal Homes (now in its 110^th year) to the dinky Houzz of 2018 which was held in a single house in Soho. 

This week is a favourite of mine – Clerkenwell Design Week. 

It covers everything from furniture to lighting and textiles to accessories and is set in an area with more creative businesses per square mile than anywhere in the world (plus a lot of trendy coffee shops and foodie hubs).

Just one thing to say this week: Linen.

You may have noticed a nationwide campaign in April called I Love Linen. 

I spotted it at Jigsaw, but it is supported by myriad retailers and designers from Vivienne Westwood to John Lewis. Ethics, quality and sustainability are at the heart of the campaign and I, for one, am thrilled to cheer it on. 

If you missed it there’s a great site you can visit: I Love Linen

I’ve made thirteen wallpaper designs since we launched in 2009.

Dragons and dinosaurs for my boys when they were little, planes and robots for the aerophiles and technophiles, adventurous girls for the little women, stripes and jigsaw pieces in response to requests for something more abstract.  

But this is the only one I made just for me.

I’ve just realised that my two signature wallpaper designs feature sibling relationships.

I shouldn’t be surprised because I made the first wallpaper for my twin sons and I was brought up with one sister but there you are. 

Hadn’t properly noticed until I was looking for a present for my sister’s birthday this week and vaguely wondering if I could get away with a couple of rolls of General Miss Chief (I really can’t).

I’ve always said I love Roald Dahl, and I do.  But I think I might love his illustrator Quentin Blake even more. 

His wonderful wallpaper collection from Osbourne and Little is called Zagazoo and I love his quirky Cockatoos, particularly.  

Blake’s famous for drawing with quill pens and scratchy nibs so his drawings are as full of ‘mistakes’ and surprise as the messy situations his characters find themselves in. 

One of the reasons I started designing for kids was because I wanted to get away from the leery, branded Man Utd type prints so often printed in unappealing, shouty red-and-white. 

So why do I so love PaperBoy’s Spitfire pattern in…red and white?! 

I surprise myself with my love of this fabric but for me it’s all about the quality of the colours and the material.