With its carefully curated collection, The Contemporary Selection, English luxury wallpaper brand Cole & Son brings together its most famous patterns from the Swinging Sixties and mid-century modern design, including the manufacturer's most famous wallpaper, Woods. The selection has lost none of its power to this day.
The origins and stylistic influences of the collection
The Swinging Sixties were a formative decade for English wallpaper. During this period, London was the epicentre of pop culture, with radical changes taking place in design, fashion and music. Founded in 1875, the wallpaper manufacturer Cole & Son became part of this cultural phenomenon and opened its studios to fresh design ideas. During this period, Michael Clark and David Hicks created wallpapers that quickly became timeless bestsellers for the brand.
Other influences on the wallpapers in this impressive collection were the aesthetics of American mid-century modern design and the Art Deco chic of South Beach, the Miami neighbourhood famous for its architecture.
Woods and Woods & Pears
In 1959, Michael Clark designed the famous Woods birch wallpaper for Cole & Son. Its quiet, poetic design has a slightly fairy-tale feel and, thanks to its restraint, provides a stage for colourful elements in the room. For the Woods & Pears wallpaper, the design was cleverly expanded. Here, the trees bear pears. The austerity of the original is broken with a wink.
Poetic birch design: Woods wallpaper designed by Cole & Son in 1959
Woods & Pears wallpaper
Palm Leaves and Palm Jungle
Both palm wallpapers in The Contemporary Selection collection are inspired by the Art Deco chic of South Beach, the famous district of Miami. The Palm Leaves pattern is a graphic classic and adds a subtle touch of exoticism to any room with its striking plant forms. The denser foliage and larger-scale repeat make the Palm Jungle wallpaper the more opulent sister of Palm Leaves.
Inspired by the Art Deco chic of South Beach: Palm Leaves wallpaper by Cole & Son
Palm Jungle wallpaper
Magnolia: East and West in dialogue
With Magnolia, Cole & Son brought a chinoiserie motif into the modern age. Striking pastel shades and a touch of exoticism make it one of Michael Clark's masterpieces, which found its way into countless design-conscious interiors in London in the 1960s.
East meets West: Magnolia wallpaper
Hicks' Hexagon and Hicks' Grand: hexagons for the wall
David Hicks, the dandy designer of the English Swinging Sixties, teamed up with Cole & Son to make contrasting hexagonal geometry socially acceptable in interior design: his Hicks' Hexagon wallpaper and the larger-format Hicks' Grand have long been timeless classics.
Icon of the Swinging Sixties: Hicks' Hexagon wallpaper
Hicks' Grand wallpaper
Luna
The Luna wallpaper is one of Cole & Son's minimalist patterns with a maximalist effect. Large, finely hatched discs inspired by the full moon are arranged in a serial repetition. The gold version in particular brings the magic of the night sky to the wall.
Luna wallpaper by Cole & Son
Miami: Art Deco in pastel
The opulent Miami wallpaper is Cole & Son's declaration of love for the colonnades, palm trees and pastel tones of Miami's famous Art Deco district. In a vibrant collage, it brings together architecture and vegetation to create expressive spaces.
Maximalist exoticism: Miami wallpaper by Cole & Son
Cow Parsley: English meadow for the modern age
Designed in 1966 by Mary Addington, the Cow Parsley wallpaper features silhouettes of large-format umbellifers, executed in an artistic, filigree metal printing technique. The pattern has been recoloured repeatedly over the decades. The wallpaper bridges the gap between pastoral images of nature and pop culture modernism and has established itself as one of the brand's most enduring icons. It adds a timeless, artistic touch to any room.
Pop design with umbellifers: Cow Parsley wallpaper from 1966
Versatile, timelessly beautiful
The patterns of the wallpapers collected in The Contemporary Selection range from finely drawn motifs to oversized repeats. They are equally suitable for alcoves, long lines of sight or high solo walls.
Many designs play with metallic silver, gold or copper pigments, reacting subtly to changes in the light in the room.
Despite their striking vintage character, their unique proportions allow them to be used to create luxurious designs even in ultra-modern interiors.
Picture Source: Cole & Son