Sheer farbics for contempoary interiors
Sheers and Linen
Shimmering Upholstery
New for Spring 2015, striking and shimmering design beautifully upholstered on an occasional chair.
Textured Upholstery & Sheers
Some farbics beautifully arranged from our Spring 2015 Collection. A vey nice (we think) staged image in a set full of light diffused from some white souble-wodth sheers. 3 differing and contrasting cushions arranged off-centre on white contempoary seating
Cushions
When your sofa is full up the obvious place to put your spare cushions is in that bath tub in the corner of your lounge. We have several new Spring 2015 collections waiting to hit the sewing machines of London.
Double Width Sheer
Double width sheers are great as a window treatment. The extra width (twice the size, incredibly!) means less seams, so improving the appearance and ‘hang’ as well as reducing the making-up time.
Faux Leather Upholstery Fabrics
KOTHEA are one of the UK’s leading Faux Leather suppliers to the Interior Design and Architectural sector. Our products in this sphere have high performance, commercial and residential characteristics – fantastic durability and adherence to appropriate fire retardancy standards.
We have several faux leather collections – they are aimed specifically for upholstery but are often also used on walls, doors, sometimes for curtains and cocktail bar fronts and stools.
Most of the wide range of colours we stock are available in several different finishes. The finishes range from a ‘flat’ vinyl to a heavy, but naturally, textured leather finish. In between these extremes, there are leather textures with differing degrees of depths of textures.
The ‘feel’ of the collections vary. Some are very like leather to the touch, whilst others are more vinyl. Typically more vinyl-type finishes have highly superior cleaning and light fastness properties.
Please note that these faux leathers are specifically targetted towards interiors. They are not thin, low-grade fashion faux leather.
We also have several ranges of faux animal skins, mimicking skins such as crocodile and ostrich. These are niche products and are only available by the roll.
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Beige Velvet Upholstery
Image re-blogged from mysweetsavannah; we love the Beige Velvet Upholstery, nicely complementing the faux rustic decor and grass-cloth rugs. KOTHEA mohair velvets complement many of their other velvets with fine cashmere & silk velvet being the most luxurious for interiors such as this.
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Sofa and couch – faux leather or real leather
Chic, shabby chic or a bit of a mess?
Leather upholstery is limited by the size of the hide. Probably not that much of an issue on smaller sofas.
Faux leather can have very high abrasion resistance and both can be treated for fire resistance.
Care and maintenance is easier with faux leather. Repairs and colour matching are easier with faux leather, which is important if you under-order/under-specify or just need to buy some more if the project scope increases.
Pink Linen For Upholstery & Curtains
Pink linen is a rather rare and unusual flower. Not often specified in your average interior designer’s scheme. I found this scan that we had emailed someone recently for the client to choose for some curtains. We were even able to introduce different pinks into the warp and weft of the linen for an unusual effect. (We can do that with most of our linen colours).
Anyway, I just thought the pink linen image looked nice and I wanted to share it with you!
Silk Velvet – What makes a great upholstery velvet
Silk Velvet really is one of the great upholstery velvets. It looks great, it feels great and it can be up to the job if your upholstery velvet is chosen wisely.
If your last and only experience of a velvet was sitting on one in the cinema then you really haven’t lived!
Firstly let’s look at silk velvet’s suitability for upholstery. It can have a Martindale Rub Test result of over 20,000 – so it CAN be readily suitable for many upholstery uses.
Composition. Just because it is sold as 100% silk can be misleading and not necessarily relevant. Is this 90% silk velvet better than that 100% silk velvet? You just can’t answer that by simply looking at the composition.
A silk velvet that is sold as being 100% silk may in fact be a 100% silk velvet pile and 100% cotton backcloth. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. If it is the look and feel of the silk that you are looking for then maybe it’s best to just consider the pile (assuming the backcloth is up to the job of course). One of our fine silk velvets has a 100% pile and then a backcloth of silk and cotton – with the cotton being added for strength and the overall silk content being 90%. Compare this to our Italian Silk & Cashmere Velvet which has a 70% silk + 30% cashmere pile.
Next look at the silkiness or the shininess. If you are looking for a silk velvet you will usually want a shine.
Consider too the length of the pile. Again, there is nothing inherently good or bad about a long or short pile. A shorter pile may be more rigid and upright and that could be a characteristic that you are looking for. Alternatively, a longer pile will probably lay better in one direction – and you may well want that characteristic.
The weight of the fabric in grams per metre is often used as a measure of quality. That is not always true and could, for example, easily be distorted by a heavy and poor quality backcloth.
My personal preference would be to get my hand on a sample; feel it and look at it. What I look for and prefer is a slightly more rigid and consistent pile with a very dense weave. I would look carefully at the country of manufacture. I prefer an Italian velvet (mainly because it sounds better!) but if not Italian then I would certainly only consider a velvet produced in mainland western Europe. But don’t copy me, have the confidence to choose what you like – you are going to have to live with it. I would now choose my upholsterer carefully; many years ago a velvet-covered chair came back for me from a local upholsterer and the pile was not running in a consistent direction…it didn’t look great (read ‘awful’). So don’t, like me, assume that all upholsters know what they are doing with velvets, they patently don’t all know. I would then read our guide to upholstering with velvet – a designer’s worksheet and armed with a bit of knowledge quiz your upholsterer carefully.