Bright ideas
Upcycling and reusing is becoming far more prevalent and Charlotte Raffo has sent us some great examples.
Leeds-based Charlotte founded the hugely successful The Monkey Puzzle Tree, which specialises in transferring art on to luxury fabric and wallpaper.
There is far more to this than meets the eye, thanks to use of colour and the tricky proposition of pattern repeats and that is Charlotte’s skill. She knows what will work.
Everyone is a winner, as the artists are supported by generous royalties, Charlotte can maintain her business and buyers get something exciting and original.
All designs are made within 100 miles of her Leeds studio to support local jobs and preserve our heritage industries. The fabric is used extensively for curtains and increasingly for recovering chairs and sofas. The cost of upholstering a good quality chair or sofa does not come cheap as there is a great deal of skill involved, but it generally compares well with the cost of buying new.
You can also hunt for vintage and antique chairs and sofas that need recovering.
Pictured here are two examples of chairs recovered using The Monkey Puzzle Tree fabrics. The Rita does
Jazz velvet, below, is £144 per metre and the Metamorphosis, inset above, linen union is £132 per metre. www. themonkeypuzzletree.com