Mark Alexander | Panama

Panama takes its name from the weave, a simple over-and-under basket structure worked in fine natural fibre and mounted on a paper backing. The strands are narrow and evenly set, so the surface is close and regular with only a shallow relief, and the wall reads as a quiet even texture rather than as a pattern. It is one of the more disciplined natural wallcoverings, without the irregularity a coarser grass brings with it.

Rolls are 91 centimetres wide and 7.32 metres long, with no repeat to match. Three colourways, all in the grey family: Mist, a pale cool neutral; Dove, a soft mid grey a shade warmer than it; and Gunmetal, the deepest, where the weave shows as relief more than as colour. The fibre is natural, so tone shifts between panels and along a roll, which is inherent to the material and worth planning into the order.

We use Panama when a whole room needs lining and nothing should compete, so a bedroom, a dressing room, a study, or a corridor. The even weave carries over large areas and turns the corners of a room better than a coarse grasscloth. Mist keeps a small room open; Gunmetal suits a room used in the evening with lamps rather than downlights. Order a sample to see it in your own light.

Paste the wall and hang each drop dry, butting the seams rather than overlapping them. Keep paste off the face, as the fibre will mark and cannot be cleaned afterwards. Order all the rolls you need at once and check the batch numbers agree across the lot. Reverse alternate drops if shading is noticeable, and hold a spare roll back for repairs, since a later batch will read differently.

• Roll width: 91 cm
• Roll length: 7.32 m
• Pattern repeat: None — free match
• Application: Paste-the-wall
• Care: Wipe gently with a soft, dry cloth
• Collection: Collage II, Mark Alexander
• Colourways: 3 (Mist, Dove, Gunmetal)