Mark Alexander | Plait Wallcovering

Plait is what the name says: a natural fibre worked into a flat braid and laid in rows across a paper backing, so the wall carries a repeating plaited line. The braids sit close enough to read as one continuous surface and stand proud enough to throw a small shadow, and that shadow is where most of the interest comes from, because the texture changes through the day as light moves round the room. It is a handmade surface and it looks like one.

The roll is 91 centimetres wide and 7.3 metres long. There is no pattern repeat to match, so drops can be cut straight to height. It comes in a single colourway, Bark, a mid brown carrying the natural fibre's own variation through it, lighter along the crown of each braid and deeper in the channels between them. No dye process can make that even, and the paper is the better for not being even.

One colourway means using it decisively. We would take it across all four walls of a small room, a cloakroom, a study or a dressing room, or across one wall behind a bed with the rest painted in a tone drawn from the paper. It sits well with dark timber, with unbleached linen and with brass. Keep pattern out of the rest of the scheme. Order a sample to see it in your own light.

It is applied paste-the-wall. Handle the drops by their edges and keep paste off the face, because a braided fibre holds a mark and cannot be sponged clean. Variation between panels is inherent in the material, so hang lengths in the order they come off the roll and reverse alternate drops if you want the shading to balance. Order all rolls in one batch number and include a spare, as a later batch will not match this one.

• Roll width: 91 cm
• Roll length: 7.3 m
• Pattern repeat: None — random match
• Suitable for: Walls
• Care: Wipe gently with a soft, dry cloth
• Collection: Collage IV, Mark Alexander
• Colourways: 1 (Bark)