Urban Upholstery

Monday 23 December 2013

Marry Christmas and Happy New Year

Sunday 22 September 2013

REMIX

Remix is a show curated by Mini moderns for the London Design Festival 2013 and hosted by the East London Design Store, London Field E8. The Remix project sees a collaboration between the designers duo of Mini Moderns (wallpaper, fabric, paint, lampshade, etc) and a selected group of designers and artists. Using their past collection Darjeeling wallpaper design, which was launched this year as part of the Buddha of Suburbia collection, they gave to the designers free reign to reimagine the design on a piece of their choice.
The project includes work by Zoe Murphy, Leonhard Pfeifer, Rimmington Vian, Urban Upholstery and Brume, as well as the launch of Mini Moderns’ first lighting collection, produced and designed in collaboration with Group Design. Further work comes from artist Matt Sewell and furniture maker Benjamin Boyce, who have both used the range of Mini Moderns Environmentally Friendly Paint as the basis for their response.

The event runs throughout London Design Festival, with a launch evening on Thursday 12 September from 6pm, and a daytime customer event on Saturday 21 September, at which customers can meet the Mini Moderns design team.

UU0044_Josephine B_chair

Josephine B_chair (back view)

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.

Wednesday 23 January 2013

Another Life for Furniture

Another Life For Furniture

Deconstructed upholstery

“For quite some time we have nurtured the idea to experiment with upholstery and reveal to others the magical process that we see.

Each time we work on upholstering a traditional sofa it evokes us the inside of a piano: it is functional, aesthetically beautiful, precisely constructed and very complex to build…. it is an object that continues to reveal itself.

It inspired us to transform a traditional chesterfield sofa to one with upholstery that comes apart to show the springs, cords, webbing and the old frame.

At the beginning of 2012 in order to develop this idea, we created the Josephine B_chair and 5 months later we undertook the development of the Baubau_sofa.

The Josephine B_chair started as an experimental project to develop, on a smaller scale, our plans for the chesterfield sofa, however, it became a piece on its own right: a common chair with quite an exceptional look. Each upholstered part: wings, arms, back and seat can be removed, simply by unfastening press buttons and a system of elastic webbing that secures them to the chair-frame.

Developing the idea for the chair was a huge step towards our grand project the Baubau_sofa.”

The chesterfield sofa now has the same characteristics as the chair, all of the upholstered parts can be removed, thanks to the press fasteners and elastic webbing. When all else is removed, only the beautiful cage of “hand-tied springs” on the seat and back of the sofa remain visible. The Baubau sofa reveals one of the oldest, magical processes, which in the upholstery world is part of the traditional technique, but usually this becomes hidden due to the subsequent layers that are normally added.

The cushions have been stuffed mostly with wool, except from the booster of the back and arms that are made of foam. The hand-stitched mattress is stuffed with carded lamb’s wool and layers of wool sheets have been used to make the shaped cushions on the back.

Whilst the chair has been recovered with plain and natural colour mixing wool fabrics and linen to create a “chiaroscuro”.

To cover the sofa we teamed-up with artist Laura Hamilton, whose company

‘Bird In The Hand’, produces hand printed textiles, inspired by Jamaican prints from the 60's and 70's.

For the first time the furniture were presented to the public at Tent London 2012, displaying them in conjuction with Bird In The Hand.

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Holiday Season

Friday 26 October 2012

Baubau_sofa

The Baubau sofa with Josephine B_chair is part of the collection "the upholstery that comes apart".
It is a special take on English classic furniture: a chesterfield sofa.
The upholstered parts can be removed, thanks to the press fasteners and elastic webbing. When all else is removed, only the beautiful cage of “hand-tied springs” on the seat and back of the sofa remain visible.
The Baubau sofa reveals one of the oldest, magical processes, which in the upholstery world is part of the traditional technique, but usually this becomes hidden due to the subsequent layers that are normally added.
The old frame was treated to emphasize the natural look of the wood, revealing the patina of time.
The cushions have been stuffed mostly with wool, except from the booster of the back and arms that are made of foam. The hand-stitched mattress is stuffed with carded lamb’s wool and layers of wool sheets have been used to make the shaped cushions on the back.
To cover the sofa Urban Upholstery teamed-up with artist Laura Hamilton, whose company
‘Bird In The Hand’, produces hand printed textiles, inspired by Jamaican prints from the 60's and 70's.
Presented for the first time at Tent London, during The London Design Festival 2012, Old Truman Brewery, London E1