British Style: De Gournay

British wallcoverings brand de Gournay is really a London-based family-run company with showrooms in New You are able to and Bay Area that are experts in making exquisite hands-colored wallpapers which decorate several of the best interiors all over the world.

Here, we consider the history, strengths and latest collections of the important interior planning brand.

HOW DE GOURNAY Began

Claud Cecil Gurney founded de Gournay in 1986, reverting towards the original French spelling of his surname. An financial aspects finish the College of Chicago, Claud had been trained in accountancy with PWC after which spent a long time employed in finance.

Delving into the field of interiors wasn’t a part of an agenda: their birth was motivated by an unsuccessful look for someone within the United kingdom using the necessary skills to revive some antique Chinoiserie wallpaper in the home

The search required Claud – and the nephew Dominic Evans-Freke­ – to China where they searched for trained artisans who could possibly replicate the missing panels. Then, they discovered several obstacles, the primary one to be the Chinese government’s preference for mass style of wallpaper ideas over the things they then considered to become frivolously artistic enterprises. Additionally, the tradition of hands-painting wallpaper with this market had almost become extinct – there is only a single supplier left in southern China.

In order to make a move to stem this tide, Claud searched for artists whose parents and grandma and grandpa have been formally been trained in the fine brushstroke techniques, and gradually started to construct a group of creatives.

HOW ARE DE GOURNAY’S PANELS Created?

What began with around five artists has grown to some studio with around 100, a number of whom have labored for the organization because the late 1980s. Typically, between six to 10 artists work on one order.

The typical panel is all about 90cm wide and a pair of.5m high and takes around 150 hrs for six artists to create. Since many designs require about 20 panels, a complete order may take between three and 6 several weeks. Each finished panel is really a thing of beauty that may be taken off walls to become re-hung in other rooms, allowing to allow them to be considered as heirlooms for the future.

The wallpaper is generally made from colored Xuan ‘rice’ paper or perhaps a paper-backed silk. The backdrop is usually colored in gouache and so the design is colored using watercolors. Everything from the design is first outlined in pencil through the artist – look carefully at any de Gournay paper and it is easy to see pencil marks, showing they all are hand crafted.

DE GOURNAY GOES GLOBAL

This Year, de Gournay opened up a flagship showroom in the middle of New York’s design district. It was adopted 5 years later with a second US showroom which opened up in Bay Area.

In 2015, de Gournay opened up two showrooms in China: one out of Beijing, another in Shanghai. The second stands inside a 1930s row house in the heart of in france they Concession as the one out of Beijing is situated in a historic siheyuan – an average house with caned doorways that available to a lush garden. When the organization opened up its showroom in Shanghai many purchasers pointed out that the Chinoiserie displayed was ‘so English’

DE GOURNAY’S KEY COLLECTIONS: CHINOISERIE

de Gournay owns accurate documentation of historic papers along with its own collection which has grown in the last almost 4 decades. All of them is fully adaptable to meet the requirements of clients. Original designs are often adapted to satisfy contemporary interiors, extending the plethora of backgrounds and colour ways to guarantee this ancient skill remains relevant.