Wallpaper: The Ultimate Guide
By Charlotte Abrahams
Quadrille, £30
FT Bookshop price: £24
Describing any book as “the ultimate guide” is dangerous – particularly when it contains just 250 designs selected from many thousands available. Leaving aside that gripe, this is a refreshingly accessible overview of a decorative device currently enjoying a remarkable renaissance.
From its origins in the 16th century, wallpaper’s story is one of fluctuating fortunes, as fashion/design journalist Charlotte Abrahams reveals in her informative introduction to this 256-page hardback. The book’s three chapters deal with architectural, floral and pictorial wallpapers. Each contains a brief history of the style, reviews of key designers’ and manufacturers’ work and suggestions on how and where the wallpapers can be used, while photographs relate the designs to modern home furnishings.
About 50 full-page reproductions of contemporary wallpaper designs follow each chapter. Images are reprised in a glossary, along with details of the manufacturer (or designer) plus website addresses, the design’s name and/or code, roll-size and repeat pattern size. A penultimate section lists essential equipment with a step-by-step guide to measuring up and matching repeat patterns plus hanging advice on subjects such as dealing with corners, doorways, sockets and switches. Inspiring and useful, certainly, but not the “ultimate guide”.
