House style

A brave new world of wallpaper

ONE OF THE MOST intriguing installations at last month’s London Design Festival was Graham & Brown’s House of Wallpaper, an exhibition of wallpaper design staged within a Soho townhouse. The company has been manufacturing wallpapers from its Blackburn base since 1946, but its new collection, create d for the installation, comprises strikingly modern designs with bold colours and textured metallic finishes, inspired by industrial materials, the souks of Morocco and the tropical forests of Indonesia.

A forest of a more urban nature – Forest Hill in south-east London, to be exact – has inspired another LDF wallpaper collaboration, the results of which are no less appealing. Jordan Cluroe and Russell Whitehead of 2LG Studio devised the collection after discovering a fragment of old floral wallpaper while renovating their Forest Hill home. Handprinted by Custhom in sage green, navy, pink and pale grey, with gloss and foil detailing, the designs are also available on linen and velvet fabrics.

Fromental is similarly known for its handmade wallcoverings, often inspired by 18th-century chinoiserie, but its new collection takes cues from everything from the drawings of Hans Christian Andersen to the work of 1950s British constructivists. The designs are painted on to silk backgrounds in a mixture of flat paints and metallics, and one employs a traditional Chinese painting technique using salt to create an almost 3D texture.

Taking 3D wallpaper to the extreme – indeed, off the wall entirely – is Resinate, a finishing service launched last month by Hyde House, which allows customers to apply a wallpaper of their choice to its bespoke furniture. Designed to add a decorative dimension to anything from tables and chairs to panelling and cabinetry, the specialist resin finish seals the wallpaper in, giving it a hard, durable surface. Prices start from around £1,300 for a side table, plus the cost of paper (hydehouse.co.uk).