by Amy Hardman | Sep 24, 2019 | General, Studio News
Next week we are exhibiting at our first ever Interiors show…Design Central!
Design Central has fast become the leading Interiors trade show in the North West and although in the studio we are a bag of nerves, we are extremely excited to be apart of it this year!!
Kate and I keep asking ourselves; “have we done enough?”, “should we be doing this?” and the obvious, “do you think they will love our designs as much as we do?”. Its a never ending rollercoaster of drama, doubt then the much desired successes! Most peeps we have come across blog about ‘during’ or ‘after’ the show but after all the labour that as gone into this, we thought we would give you a little insight into what it takes do bring an exhibition space together when (a) you have never exhibited before and (b) haven’t a clue where to start and most importantly (c) dont have ££££’s to thrown on ‘stand furniture’ and believe you me, the costs can definitely stack up!!!!! As for the overall success, we will let you know the outcome after next week.
When planning our stand, we reverted back to what makes our brand which in essence is history so what better way to display our products than vintage finds upcycled into shelving and other furniture pieces!! We are also on a mission to be as environmentally friendly as we can so by using recycled pieces to create our stand, we are reducing waste…winner winner!
After much searching, I found a set of lovely old apple crates and a beautiful old double sided step ladder…the perfect started ingredients for a plan coming together. Luckily at this time, a good friend of ours who is a property developer, was pulling some old knackered flooring up out of a derelict mill and he very kindly gave us what ever we needed of the timber! Hey presto we had shelving…dirty, dusty and battered wood to say the least but that is were all the elbow grease (and a lot of power tools!) come into play.
Of course I roped in my husband and within a matter of days he had engineered the production of several steel frames (thanks to a wonderful man named Bob!) to hang the fabric lengths from plus a very fabulous bar table pedestal which again all it needed was the creation of a gorgeous, rustic table top! And of course I didn’t want a simple square shaped top….nope, round for me please! Queue a lot of eye rolling and huffing from the dear husband! But to give him his dues, the shelving and the table tops look incredible. Good husband!
Now that the stand is looking lovely this is what we are going to be showing…30 lengths of our favourite fabrics, all of our wallpapers plus our exciting new collection of accessories which we are officially launching at the show!!! I’m a little bit giddy with the anticipation as I just LOVE it all.
We have 11 stylish and sumptuous cushions in both linen and velvet which are inspired by some our most popular prints. We also have 4 beautifully hand made lampshades; 2 traditional with dramatic fringing and bold linings and 2 more modern drum shades. One of which is really quirky but more on that later.
As well as the interior accessories, we have launched a stunning collection of hand drawn greetings cards. The collections feature exotic birds, mischievous monkeys, insects and exquisite crowns! The crowns are a personal favourite as they emphasise that nature in its rawness is equally, if not more than, as beautiful and resplendent as a cut and polished diamond
Come and visit us at Design Central North West at Capesthorne Hall, Cheshire on Tuesday 1st and Wednesday 2nd October 10am until 4pm…we really would love to see you all! www.designcentraluk.com to register for your FREE tickets.
See you there x
by Amy Hardman | Apr 4, 2019 | Featured, Studio News
Finally after a complete labour of love, our second collection, The Botanist, is finally here and I hope you love it as much as we do.
From launching our debut collection in 2018, we have met some incredible people who have become either valued clients, suppliers or simply friends…we have listened to everyone’s suggestions and ideas and voila, The Botanist collection is here!
We felt our brand would really benefit from the introduction of a floral design and a little more colour. Current industry trends are showing that strong colours and all over pattern is in demand so the creation of The Botanist was based from all this knowledge but with the necessity that the designs are timeless and we think we have achieved this perfectly.
John Tradescant Snr started his career as head gardener at Hatfield House when it was owned by Sir Robert Cecil. He created and cultivated the gardens here and with Sir Roberts blessing, went on many voyages exploring foreign lands, finding many different species of plants and flowers and returning them to England to introduce to the gardens at Hatfield House.
Flora – View colourways here
Flora is a beautiful and simply coloured floral printed onto 100% Linen. The parred down version of Grandiflora has a striking yet almost masculine feel to the design. The intricate hand drawn detailing is exceptional. We left the peony amongst other smaller areas of the design un-coloured to allow the crisp oyster colour of the linen to come through and give a strong contrast against the colour of the ground cloth. The teal coloured beetles gives the fabric a subtle vibrancy which is just lovely when the fabric drapes.
Suitable for both soft furnishings and upholstery.
Grandiflora – View colourways here
Grandiflora is a huge step out of our collection comfort zone. It is a full colour, all over detailed floral that caused me many a sleepless night. Was it too vibrant, too detailed, too much going on but I just loved it so much that I decided to go for it. I didn’t want a pretty, chintzy design that people would only use in a traditional environment but something that wouldn’t look out of place in any interior setting. We felt that Grandiflora was such an authentic looking floral. It pays homage to all the beautiful gardens in England and we’re sure John Tradescant Snr himself would be pleased with our design which we hope honors the work he did at Hatfield House and all the wonderful specimens of flora and foliage that he introduced to England. Most of which are the most loved plants and flowers in England today.
As standard, Grandiflora is printed onto a Linen/Viscose mix which gives the fabric a beautiful handle and drape. It is such a tactile fabric with the added bonus of being difficult to crease. For a more bold look, we can print the Grandiflora onto our 100% linen which really makes the colours and pattern leap off the fabric.
Suitable for all soft furnishings and upholstery.
Alliga – View colourways here
Alliga is a fabulously striking design. Its our interpretation of algae and lichen that forms in beautiful patterns on rock faces by the sea shore and on trees in woods. From our colour trials, we selected Absinthe as we loved the intensity of this really useable colour; the ink and blush look magnificent made up and also work perfectly with the more simple fabrics such as Chevron, Pen & Ink and Winter’s Bone from The Curator collection.
The Alliga is printed onto a Cotton/Linen mix and is suitable for all soft furnishings and upholstery.
by Amy Hardman | Feb 25, 2019 | Interior Design, Studio News
After the success of our debut fabric collection, we felt it was the right time to launch our luxury wallpaper to co-ordinate with The Curator fabrics.
We selected 5 of our favourite designs and digitally printed them onto a non-woven, coated premium quality paper.
Our standard range consists of the Hummingbird Stripe, Cyanistes, Parakeet, Ibis Toile de Jouy and Winter’s Bone all printed onto a 10m roll at a width of 52cm. All our wallpapers are held in stock and are available for immediate despatch.
Our wallpaper can be custom printed to your exact scale preference and colour matched to your exact requirements. We can also print any of our fabric designs onto wallpaper. Just let us know the design you are interested in and we will provide you with a *design mock-up, *initial sampling and quotation.(*design fee may apply)
Should you preference be wide width or complete single panel wall installations, we can also accommodate this. Please send us your wall sizes and finish choice and we will provide you with a quotation and a selection of substrates to chose from.
by Amy | Nov 19, 2014 | Studio News
Something we are asked about a lot is our ability to provide bespoke products, whether it’s cushions, colour-matched shades for our fabrics or entirely different base fabrics for our designs.
Most interior designers come to us for something different – they don’t want to turn to the big, easily recognisable names for their projects, and know that it’s more interesting for clients to be asked “Where did you get your amazing curtains?” rather than “Oh, so you used the beige and cream colourway of Hugely Famous Company’s best-selling and instantly recognisable fabric?”
Rather than limit our clients with the smaller range of colours and finishes inevitable in a niche design studio, we use our core collection of colours simply as a starting point. Our books contain both the full colour versions of our designs and three of our most popular colourways – Dust, Rose and Ink, along with an invitation to discuss alternative colours, fabrics and finishes to complement the most adventurous project.
This week we are fulfilling orders for a set of four bespoke cushions and a roll of our Winter’s Bone antlers pattern in darkest not-quite-black, which we colourmatched to Farrow & Ball Railings on request.
Get in touch with us to request samples, and sign up for our mailing list to the right to keep in touch.
Image: Railings in a room from Easy Living, February 2013, with thanks.
by Amy | Nov 12, 2014 | Studio News
Through our sister brand, Natural History, we have been supplying top retailers all over the world, from Liberty to Lane Crawford, with our finely produced linen cushions. This Spring we will be launching our very own Tradescant & Son cushion collection, a range of oversized, luxuriously trimmed linen cushions featuring our favourite prints.
Interior designers can order any combination of print, base fabric and trim from the collection, and we will also be working with a select number of international retailers on a core range.
Sign up for our mailing list so that we can let you know when you can find these beautiful cushions in shops, or get in touch directly if you would like to order now.
by Amy | Oct 20, 2014 | Studio News
We got our most recent batch of swatch books in only a couple of weeks ago and we’re down to the last few already. The extra large books were sent to the lovely showrooms who work with us in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Russia, and the standard books go out to all the lovely interior designers who carry the range in their showrooms.
If you would like to order one of these books, or (when they’re gone) put your name down for our waiting list for the next batch in January, let us know!
