When I  was working as a full time interior designer I would always work with  fabrics from famous companies.

My favourite fabric designer in the eighties was Manuel Canovas, well known for his bold designs of flowers in the most elegant colour combinations assorted with an astonishing variety of plain fabrics as chintz, silk velours and satin cottons and this in the most marvellous colours. This was in the pre beige,greige, grey linen period we live in at the moment.

Manuel canovas

Another master of fabric creation was Jack Lenor Larsen. I worked with a travel case that contained little square samples of all the fabrics. Rich embroidered silks with little plasticised mirrors to the most dazzling handwoven wool fabrics to make cushions and upholster chairs.

Jack Lenor Larsen fabric for a chair designed by Pierre Paulin for Artifort.

For the more traditional interiors I worked a lot with a Swiss company called Zumsteg and the very old French house of Comoglio that was bought by Pierre Frey in the 1990s.To upholster chairs , my favourite material was horsehair by Le Crin. I also liked very much Rubelli and Colefax and Fowler. In the eighties working with Designers Guild and Souleiado was very fashionable. It was the period when the Indian cotton Dhurries were in fashion. An overload of soft colours and a base for many an interior. The most beautiful came from Shyam Ahuya, whom I visited in New Delhi.

Indian handwoven cotton dhurrie

It was in a period when going to Paris and London to do the fabric fairs was quite a posh. It was in a pre internet world. A smaller world where you could express yourself very individually.

Now things have changed. I think that people take less time for their house and go in the malström of mass ideas. In magazines and books, it is very often the same kind of interior that is showed, often without personality. Anyway the influential magazines of the 80′s and 90′s have disappeared and  what is left is of no comparison with what I was used to read.

Well, everything changes. Nothing stays the same and so did I. I had this wonderfull time being surrounded in my office with all those colours and fabrics and now I see decoration in a new way and with another kind of fabrics and inspirations

Fabrics that are soooo beautiful, but comes from Market places wherever I travel. I buy old French bedsheets to make slipcovers. I go to Zara Home for pillows and throws ,Ian Mankin has wonderful striped cottons and I like a lot of  cushions at Ikea and Hema. I buy wool fabrics in clothes fabric shops to cover seats and I like pinstripe fabric for suits to make curtains. With some luck and patience I find the most amazing linens for normal prices and of course I let my imagination work in another way. Fun and versatility, changing moods, evolutional moods. Creativity, Low budget thinking and a lot of wandering around open my mind to constant innovative ideas.

Colours ins clothes fabric shop.

Silk velours in a London market.

Ian Mankin - London.

So chic.

 When it is possible to use fabrics made in the region where I work, I do it. I use Mallorquina fabric in a house in Ibiza and I use linen in Belgium.

Typical Mallorquina.

Belgian Linen.

photo credits: Pinterest.