Theme of the month: Textiles in the home

Textiles in the home

As we know, textiles make an enormous difference to the way our homes look and feel. From shaggy rugs to sheers, 16^th century to contemporary and brightly coloured to tactile neutrality; textiles add warmth, define an interior concept and have the almost supernatural ability to pull a room together. They can pick up colours from your favourite painting and scatter them around the house, they can define zones for living, working, cooking and eating.

Textiles are amongst the oldest trading materials, even defining areas or regions; think “Silk Road”, that legendary route between China and Venice. In fact textiles were largely responsible for the importance of Venice as a city state. This legacy may still be seen at the Palazzo Fortuny, where the legendary Fortuny fabric house was created.

As the evenings become shorter, consider textiles as a way of cosy-ing up your interior. It can be very inexpensive (IKEA have some great linens and rugs) or very expensive (think antique hand knotted silk carpets alongside fragments of tapestries next to cut velvet curtains – hung very simply so that the fabric is the star, not the heading.)

Add some great lighting (fully dimmable of course, preferably with an open fire and candles) and allow your textiles to work their magic over the autumn and winter months.