Monday 21 September 2015

Lewis & Wood - The English Ethnic collection



In my last blog post I included samples from Lewis & Wood, an English textile and wallpaper company, and said I would share more later. They had sent me a stack of both fabric and wallpaper samples, some that had already attracted my attention online. The surprise were patterns they included in the package that hadn't caught my attention on their website but looked so incredibly beautiful when I was able to see the design details with my own eyes and feel the texture. I plan to share a few patterns later but today, with my latte, I'm focusing on the Womad and Bacchus patterns from their English Ethnic collection that arrived on the market last year. The collection, designed by artists Su Daybell, Flora Roberts and Melissa White, has been well received and featured in various magazines.



At Lewis & Wood they refer to Su Daybell as their wild card. She is the artist who created the arresting Womad pattern that has abstract flowers and motifs. The 100% linen fabric is available in two colours, burnish and celestial. To say that I have a major crush on the burnish one, in my top photo, would be an understatement. I honestly cannot stop admiring it. The colour palette of the Womad wallpaper consists of three beautiful hues of blue, brown and yellow, called stream, silt and sand.

In the foreground: Womad wallpaper samples in (from left) silt, sand and stream

For the collection, Daybell also designed the Force 9 pattern, suited for anyone unafraid of bold design. For those interested, a styling in the September 2014 issue of House & Garden shows it in a colour called gravel.

Bacchus wallpaper and fabric in mead by artist Melissa White

The Bacchus pattern by artist Melissa White for the English Ethnic collection is certainly on the market to stay. In the August 2015 issue of The World of Interiors its bluish colour - grigio - was selected in a round up of the best bold large-scale patterns on the market. The BBC Antiques Roadshow Magazine selected the pattern, in mead, as their winner of 'Best Printed Fabric 2014'. In their July 2014 issue they featured White at work in her studio where you can view her original artwork for the Bacchus design.

In a brochure from Lewis & Wood, introducing the collection and its designers, it says that Melissa White is well known for her Elizabethan wall paintings and painted cloths, that her "scholarly fascination with surface decoration and historical detail" give her designs a "real authority". The Bacchus pattern, 100% linen fabric and wallpaper, is available in three colours, mead, malt (greyish) and grigio. Not shown in this blog post is her other design for the collection, the Rococo wallpaper.



Decorative muralist Flora Roberts was the third artist chosen to design for the English Ethnic collection. You can view her stunning patterns Doves and Sika on the Lewis & Wood website.

Lewis & Wood was founded in 1993 by textile printer Stephen Lewis and interior designer Joanna Wood. In the beginning the operation was in a London basement but in 2008 the company moved to a large building in Woodchester Mill, in the Stroud Valleys in Gloucestershire. If you happen to be in London their showroom is on the first floor of the Design Centre East at Chelsea Harbour.

In the left corner, a detail of the Bacchus fabric in grigio by artist Melissa White


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