Passionate About Fabrics
Bored with wallpaper? Wallcoverings come in many foms. KOTHEA are now releasing 7 Raffia Wallcovering Designs each in a range of colourways.
Stardust is a classic weave of 100% natural cellulose. Suitable for residential or contract usage – if properly treated. At 106cm wide each standard roll is 36m long with a cut-length service available.
Via Flickr:
Raffia Wallcovering. 100% Cellulose. 106cm untrimmed. Can be FR Fire Treated. KOTHEA Luxury Fabrics @ www.kothea.com
Bored with wallpaper? Wallcoverings come in many foms. KOTHEA are now releasing 7 Raffia Wallcovering Designs each in a range of colourways.
Stardust is a classic weave of 100% natural cellulose. Suitable for residential or contract usage – if properly treated. At 106cm wide each standard roll is 36m long with a cut-length service available.
Via Flickr:
Raffia Wallcovering. 100% Cellulose. 106cm untrimmed. Can be FR Fire Treated. KOTHEA Luxury Fabrics @ www.kothea.com
London based Lisa Parsons supplies fabrics to the hippest and most exclusive UK designers. The founder of KOTHEA, her Spring2011 collection-in-progress is about to take Velvet to a new level of opulence.
With no time to think I would paint my walls with … Kelly Hoppen’s “Perfect Taupe”. Her colours are fantastic and, in this case, it does what it says on the tin.
My favourite piece of furniture is … an old chair I picked up in a local junk shop and I had it recovered in one of my fabrics; LeapFrog.
The car’s almost full in that small space I would pack … The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, I’ve just started it and a spot of holiday reading beckons.
Guests to my house are intrigued by … this bizarre surveying tool I have in the corner of my lounge. It’s a measuring stick used with a theodolite and it adds a bit of height and interest to a corner of my room. It also detracts from a piece of my husband’s artwork which, although good, I have to compromise on putting on show from time-to-time.
I am … passionate about my fabrics and design; I am always inspired by many of today’s amazing yacht interiors, Terence Disdale is fantastic. I would love to be in a position to commission him.
The hardest thing about work is … keeping my beautiful fabrics at home clean whilst having three children and their 30 sticky fingers. Gulp.
In my spare time … I just said I have had a third child; what spare time! I do love yoga though, with headstands being my forte. I have also designed and made many pieces of jewellery. Chris Farrow made this one up to my design, it has 3 rotating rings with a semi-precious stone on which rotate around a larger holding ring also with a set stone.
The trendiest colour is … hmm, trendy. Difficult one, KOTHEA operates at the top end of the market and I would have to say that the desirable colours there have varied little over the last ten to 15 years. Lower down the market it is different.
My favourite designers are … well I’ve mentioned a few already. I would certainly look at Gotham (Notting Hill) for furniture. John Hutton did amazing chairs and I was privileged enough to sell a few when I worked at Donghia in the 90s. Nick & Christian the famous Candy brothers have done some amazing things just look at One Hyde Park.
The best technology is … I suppose I should say Apple but I love my Blackberry as it helps me stay in touch with everyone and everything.
The most iconic British designer is … without a doubt, Terence Conran. His massive influence has probably been understated.
A plug for your company?…We mostly deal with the very top interior designers; not all of them but many of them. That’s the market we are in and intend to stay in. We know it pretty well and we like to think our fabrics meet their needs. A case-in-point is our new velvet collection. Opulent Cashmere and Italian Silk velvet.
Most interesting use of your products? … Some of the yachts they are specified on are pretty interesting! We’ve supplied some pretty interesting pop stars and celebrities (if you are into that sort of thing). One interesting client came through a Mayfair yacht broker and temporarily wanted his ‘fishing boat’ fitted out wall-to-wall with faux leather. All I can say is that it must have been a pretty large fishing boat and certainly not what I had in mind when I think about fishing boats!
We have a new look blog today, not earth shattering news but it helps people navigate around the site when coming there for the first time. All the content is the same it is presented differently using a new WordPress theme.
Perhaps not the most exciting news you will read today I know! We have been aware for a few months that our web site images needed to improve. We re-used the same images again and again. So we have finally acquired a new image for just about every page, all reflecting the product we offer in the relevent area! Well, at least you can sleep soundly tonight knowing that we are happy. I joke of course.
Coming from the designer/producer/supplier of fabrics angle makes it a little tricky for us. We do not feel it is our job to stage our fabrics on a photo set in a room of our liking. We are not the interior designers, that’s your job! We may see one of our fabrics in a certain way – for example I always associate our faux leathers with bar stools (misspent youth). However you may well see many other angles: wall covering, cushions and so on. So we try not to second-guess you. the interior designer. So, our challenge is to show some of the fine detail of our products without you being able to either see it in 3D yourself or feel it. Tricky. Have a look.
Anyway, we hope you enjoy the photos (along with the parts of the new collections on flickr) and any comments will be greatly appreciated.
Finally! Our summer collections have been decided and we will begin to introduce the new designs and colourways throughout the remainder of this year. We have been inundated with new work in the first part of this year causing our blog posts to be curtailed and our ‘spring’ collection to nearly be an autumn/fall collection. Not that we really do seasonal collections in any case.
I will return later in another post to KOTHEA’s awesome sales figures for the financial year just finished. Most surprising, especially considering we are in the midst of a recession. We had our best ever year and by quite a large margin.
We expect some coverage of the new collections in World of Interiors and Elle decoration but, again, more on that at another time.
Where can you see our collections? Well, we are as elusive as ever but we are starting to digitize some images to our flickr feed (click the images on the right or here). The flickr update is ongoing, there is information on flickr now but some of the images are not final and some images do not have full associated descriptions / product details but we are woking on that this week. Our usual clients will receive the new collections in due course starting in late summer; if you need them more urgently for pressing projects of course we will be happy to oblige. Please get in contact in the usual way.
Not all are in production yet but most sampling is available now.
As a very broad summary we have:
1. New colours of several existing ranges including faux leather;
2. More velvets including patterned and crush;
3. Striped, double-width linens;
4. Upholstery weight linen; and
5. A few more interesting one-off designs in limited colourways like the one heading up this blog post.
How does that sound. I mean “Appassionato Di Tessuti”, how does that sound (apart from “Italian”, which is what it is)?
Honestly, we do have more important things here at KOTHEA to worry about other than our company strap line – such as the Autumn 2010 collection. However we have used the “Passionate About Fabrics” strap line for our business for over 7 years and, whilst it does accurately depict how we behave and feel, we have noticed that quite a few other companies in a wide range of fields also use the “Passionate About [something]” line as well. I’m sure it’s very true about them also, but it potentially kind of devalues what we are saying.
So we are procrastinating over numerous coffees as to what we should change our strap line to, if at all. Remember it does say what we want it to but we are concerned that the phrase may be overused elsewhere.
So here’s our thinking and you can vote on your preference at the end.
1. Leave ‘as-is’.
2. Appassionato Di Tessuti – Same words in Italian, where many of our designs are produced.
3. Ispirati Da Tessuti – Inspired by Fabrics. Lose the passion, regain the inspiration?!
4. Tessuti Di Ispirazione – Inspirational Fabrics
Please give us your opinion:
[polldaddy poll=3284934]
What do you think of the new online logo-cum avatar?
Our normal branded corporate image did not translate to the tiny logos/avatars that seem to be needed everywhere on the web so we had to come up with something to fill the gap.
We stuck with the corporate Pantone colours and font and settled on a facebookesque styled rounded square.
We’ve added a Twitter button that links to our Twitter feed on our blog and web site.
We have been absolutely hectic at KOTHEA this year. Some new velvets are coming on board as I write and we have been concentrating a lot more as well on European business this year.
There are a few new marketing activities we have planned which should hopefully add a little value to the interior design community rather than just trying to sell stuff to them, so watch this space and your in-box for more information on that.
We have tried to offer as full a range of velvets as possible: cotton velvets; linen velvets; cashmere silk velvets; silk velvets; mohair velvets and so on. We are thought about offering a budget range as well but decided in the end not to tarnish our strong quality brand. I think we made the right choice.
