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Wednesday 8 May 2013

French Flair

 Last February when Irene Braas, an aspiring upholsterer from HMC mbo vakschool Amsterdam, Holland, stayed with us for 10 weeks, we worked on a new collection of chairs with traditional french style upholstery. She is specialising in traditional upholstery and she wanted to master the technique with us. Good luck to her, she is very bright and the school is exceptional (we will get back on this as we may attend her final presentation).

But now is time to present you with our new collection of one-off pieces and their French Flair: Pampadour_chair & Versailles_chair.
The collection was inspired by a trip that we made in 2011 to Paris, in occasion of Maison et Objet 2011.
During the trip we wanted to buy as well french toiles and tapestry style of fabrics and look at original antique furniture. So under suggestions of French we visited Marché Saint-Pierre, Marché aux Puces St-Ouen de Clignancourt, visited shop and upholstery workshop.
We got overwhelmed by their love and knowledge of upholstery, fabrics, furniture and antiques. French have a great tradition in furniture and visiting Versailles_castles we sow few pieces that inspired us to explore their traditional upholstery technique.
Like ours is characterised by the use of hessian, fibre, cotton felt, hand-tied springs and hand-stitching but the French technique is more refined and more complex, especially when it came to make the back of our Versailles_chair (it sticks out like it would have been made with foam and believe us when we say that is one of the most complicated thing we ever done!!!).
We have enjoyed to explore the process and here we have some images to share with you:

1. Pampadour chair
 



 



Pompadour_chair has been recovered with Toile de Jouy from Pierre Marche', velvet and tapestry from Marché aux Puces St-Ouen. Finished with silk piping and a bandage with rose.

2. Versailles_chair







 Versailles chair has been recovered with a design print velvet and plain velvet. The frame has been restored and decorated with gold paint.