House & Garden, mars 2016
In Brief
In
the late seventeenth century, William Warner worked as a scarlet dyer
in London. His descendant, Benjamin Warner, picture above, started a
fabric design firm in 1857, later bringing on board his sons Alfred and
Frank, and signaling the birth of Warner & Sons.
PATTERN REPEAT
Through
a new collaboration with Claremont, the Warner Textile Archive is
bringing back its historic designs, rethought for the twenty-first
century.
TEXT JESSICA DOYLE
Within
the myriad drawers of the Warner Textile Archive in Essex lies a
treasure trove of inspiration. Set up to record the history of the
fabric company Warner & Sons from its arrival at New Mills in
Braintree in 1895 to when it stopped manufacturing there in 1971, the
archive holds over 60,000 fabric samples. Some were produced by Warner
& Sons and others collected by the companies owners and designers.
Together they document almost 500 years of textile design. Yet, although
it celebrates and conserves history, it also has its eye firmly on the
future. In a rare reversal of fortune, 45 years after Warner & Sons
ceased weaving at New Mills, the Warner Textile Archive is going back
into manufacturing with the relaunch of 11 historic fabrics.
This part of the archives story begins almost six years ago, when its archivist and commercial manager, Kate Wigley, was considering sources of revenue. When Warner & Sons, renamed Warner Fabrics, was eventually sold in the Eighties, the archive became a separate entity and changed ownership several times. It was finally put into storage in Milton Keynes, before being bought by the Braintree Disctrict Museum Trust in 2004 and returned to its home at New Mills the following year. By 2010, with dramatic state-funding cuts looming, the need for self sufficiency was becoming urgent. The archive was already licensing designs to companies such as Sanderson and Liberty, and has released a collection with Surface View - all of which will continue - but it was a long held ambition of Kate's for it to produce a collection under its own name. She experimented with a stationery range, which was launched in early 2013, and the response convinced her that there was an appetite for the designs. It is sold at the archive and online.
At
around the same time, she approached Adam Sykes, owner of the fabric
house Claremont, with a proposal for a collection. "I was looking for
somebody who could interpret the original designs, retain the character
and the skill, but also reinvigorate them," she says. "I was aware of
the high quality of Claremont's fabrics and wanted to produce to that
standard."
Kate's knowledge of fabric design and Adam's experience in
supplying to interior designers are a good match. One of Kate's
priorities was to produce a good quality chintz, for which Warner &
Sons was known: something altogether different from what she describes
as the "blowsy, overblown and glossy" quality of hard-glazed modern
chintzes. Adam agrees, "People are crying out for old-fashioned, papery
quality glazed fabrics again."
That quality, Adam felt, could only be
found at one of the specialists, family-owned European mills that
produce Claremont's fabrics. The obvious choice was Tissus d'Avesnières
in Laval, north-west France, with which he had a longstanding
relationship; it had worked with him on a reproduction chintz for
Chatsworth.
Thus began a
unique collaboration, with Kate, Adam and Nathalie Liguine of Tissus
d'Avesnières working closely together. The challenge for Nathalie was to
recreate the authentic look of the originals while using modern
techniques: a mixture of digital and screen-printing. Replicating the
exact colours of the hand-block-printed designs was particularly
complex. "We had to use three to four shades of each colour to keep the
depth of the block-print effects." She explains.
Each
of the 11 new fabrics has been painstakingly reproduced from often
fragile original documents, and many have been produced in additional
colourways to increase their appeal. Some have been finished with a
subtle glaze, giving a crisp effect with a slight sheen - not just the
chintzes, but also, unusually, heavier linen fabrics such as "Celia", a
floral design from the Twenties. Others have a tumble finish for a
softer look.
What is remarkable is the variety: Adam and Kate were
keen to reflect the breadth of the archive, so alongside the floral
designs, there are simple stripes, a classic toile and a vibrant
coral-motif print that looks strikingly contemporary. As Kate intended,
these classic and also the archive itself have been revitalized. "We are
a living archive," she says. "When people buy these fabrics, they will
help support the conservation work we are doing here. We are hoping to
tell that story."
Warner
Textile Archives fabrics will be available through Claremont from
February 24, with prices starting at £140 a meter.
warnertextilearchive.co.uk | claremontfurnishing.com