Welcome to 'It's time to rethink...', a new series where we'll be bringing some of our favourite neglected (and at times mildly controversial) decorative elements back in to the spotlight. Get ready to pour over patchwork, sigh about stripes, and have a moral tussle about whether you're ready for the return of tented ceilings.
First up, tapestry.
SOME USEFUL RESOURCES:
1stdibs | Tapisserie | Peta Smyth | A Rum Fellow | Christie's | Sotheby's | Criterion Auctions
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Tessa Traeger
Robert Kime created this opulent bathroom featuring an elegant freestanding marble bathtub for a Regency house in Scotland.
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Tessa Traeger
Another Kime scheme (you'll be seeing a few in this feature) this time in his seventeenth-century house Upper Farm in Wiltshire. Robert is the king of mixing tapestry with eclectic textiles from around the world to create a look that strikes a balance between warmth and formality.
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Tessa Traeger
A room decorated by Robert Kime for the Prince of Wales, the Garden Room of Clarence House has a sofa covered in a colourful antique fabric. "He shares my love for textiles, especially near-Eastern ones, completely."
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Tessa Traeger
The grand drawing room of South Wraxall Manor in Wiltshire boasts a Gainsborough portrait of King George III and a large tapestry among other antiques
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Andrew Montgomery
In Bridget Elworthy of The Land Gardeners' home, Wardington Manor in Oxfordshire, neutral walls are the base to show off French hangings sourced from junk shops.
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Richard Powers
When interior designer Douglas Mackie and his partner Julian Jackson bought this house in the Languedoc region of the South of France, it was a chance for him - a knowledgeable collector of textiles - to show off his stock of older, pieces. 'I have always been an avid collector, and now their rich saturated colours sit wonderfully well in the shafts of sunlight of a southern home.' In the pink bedroom a French eighteenth-century tapestry hangs behind the copper bath.
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Ngoc Minh Ngo
Tapestry doesn't have to be antique. In the living room of Jos and Annabel White's town house huge tapestries by contemporary artists Kara Walker and Julie Verhoeven line the walls.
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Simon Upton
The scheme for the drawing room in this restored farmhouse was designed around a set of seventeenth-century Soho tapestries, which hang on each side of the chimneypiece. Various shades of green, notably the British racing green velvet armchairs and the white and lime green chairs, bring the room together.
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Simon Upton
An antique tapestry fragment hangs above the bed in this room by Max Rollitt. Tongue-and-groove panelling adds New England-style charm, while the bed is covered with a vintage Welsh tapestry blanket (for similar try Blodwen).
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Simon Brown
The seventeenth-century tapestry provided the jumping off point for the colour scheme of this bedroom, the armchairs are upholstered in vivid blue mohair from Kvadrat.
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Paul Massey
In the spare room in Rita Konig's London flat a Guatemalan tapestry hangs on the wall, paired with curtains in 'Broadcloth' felt from Hainsworth, Tyler Hall's 'First Bloom' wallpaper from Tissus d'Hélène.
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Paul Massey
The hallway in this hotel designer's west London home a tapestry by the early-20th-century artist Jean Lurçat creates a fierce decorative focal point.
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The living room of designer Gert Voorjans' home mixes tapestry with coloured fabrics for an eclectic contemporary look.
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