Fromental Embroidered Silk

Embroidery is not hip. Knitting, yes; quilting, maybe. But embroidery? It’s too fusty, too methodical, too grandmotherly. Not that London-based wallpaper company Fromental is too worried about it. Since founding the company last year, husband-and-wife team Tim Butcher and Lizzie Deshayes have been reinvigorating the traditional side of wallpaper design with style and aplomb, incorporating flowers, trees, birds, butterflies, even chinoiserie—the faux Chinese decorative art that went out of style about two centuries ago.

Embroidered Silk was one of three debut collections launched at 100% Design in London last September, but it is distinct among the company’s work, featuring a spare series of vertical lines on monochrome backgrounds. “We make highly decorative work mostly,” Butcher says. “I wanted to produce something that had the same fine detail and craftsmanship but was very contemporary and clean.” The craftsmanship is a result of the company’s collaboration with artisans in China, who take Butcher and Deshayes’s designs and often devote a staggering number of hours to their execution. A recent installation for private villas at the Wynn in Las Vegas required approximately 160,000 yards of silk thread and 20,000 hours of work.

The vertical stripes are just a starting point; Butcher and Deshayes are busy developing new patterns for Embroidered Silk and will gladly embellish any of their wallpaper for custom applications. And while the delicate hand-painted butterflies outlined with silk thread may not do much for embroidery’s hip quotient, they do make for a unique and subtly luxurious piece of wall art.

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Composition:
Hand-stitched silk embroidery on acid-free-paper–backed
silk panels.

Properties:
The wallpaper is fairly durable, can be treated with stain repellants, and meets fire-safety standards for contract use. The colors will fade from prolonged UV exposure.

Applications:
The collection is particularly well suited to high-end hotels, resorts, and any interior needing luxurious finishes.

Distributor:
David Sutherland Showroom
979 Third Ave., Suite 813
New York, NY 10022
Tel: (212) 871-9717
www.davidsutherlandshowroom.com