Cole & Son | Textures - Grasscloth

Grasscloth is one of the few wallcoverings that behaves like a material rather than a print. Natural fibres are laid and woven onto a paper backing, so the surface carries slubs, changes of thickness and small shifts of tone that no printing process reproduces. Cole & Son offer it here as a plain within the collection, made to sit alongside the scenic flora and Japanese woods and chinoiserie designs, though it holds a room perfectly well on its own.

Because the fibre is natural, no two panels are identical, and the joins between drops stay faintly visible. That is characteristic of the medium rather than a fault; it is what gives a grasscloth wall its handmade weight, and why it reads warmer than paint at the same tone. Light is what brings it to life. Raked across the surface it picks out the weave, while flat light lets it settle into a quiet textural field.

The roll is 0.7 m wide and 8 m long, with a straight match. Used as a partner to a patterned design it gives the eye somewhere to rest. Used alone it suits a study, a bedroom or a dining room where the interest is meant to come from the joinery, the art and the furniture rather than from the walls, and where a plain would be too flat to do that job well.