Cole and Son wallpaper

Cole & Son wallpaper began in Islington, London, in 1875, and in 1883 the company opened a wallpaper factory on Offord Road. The designs are still printed in London.

Cole and Son wallpaper gives you a wall with a point of view: a forest of bare trunks, tiers of palm fronds, a stripe with a fine line running through every band. The pattern becomes the reason you notice the room.

The history behind Cole & Son wallpaper

The company's story is part of the history of London printmaking. Cole & Son worked with finely ground mica, which gives the paper a silky sheen, and that luster still appears on certain designs today. Hand block printing and flocked designs come from the same tradition. In 1948 the company added a screen printing studio, one of the earliest in Europe.

The archive never went into storage. Woods, Palm Jungle and Hummingbirds keep returning in new colorways because the house keeps drawing on its own past. In 2007 Cole & Son began working with the Italian design house Fornasetti, and that partnership produced its own wallpaper ranges.

Materials and look of Cole and Son wallpaper

Up close, a Cole & Son design reveals how many layers it holds. The color has depth, and much of the effect comes from texture. Woods wallpaper reads like an etching. Bare trunks in black and gray stand on off-white, the bark is built from fine hatching, and the branches overlap so the wall seems to recede.

Palm Jungle wallpaper does the opposite. Its fronds are solid graphic shapes, bright green in front with teal and blue behind, set against black. Both designs layer vertical stems, yet one feels like a pale winter wood and the other like a dark greenhouse.

Some papers in the range read like woven fabric or natural fiber. Others carry a soft mica shimmer that shifts as light moves across the room. The range spans botanical drawing and hard graphic geometry.

Signature Cole & Son wallpaper collections

Cole & Son draws on its archive and keeps reworking it. Below is a selection of the Cole and Son wallpaper collections we carry.

• Formations — strict geometry with surfaces that read as marble, mosaic and speckled stone
• Whimsical — small gold stars on navy and sperm whales diving through a finely drawn gray sea
• Martyn Lawrence Bullard — ferns in sage and olive on pale blue, cockatoos over aqua bands, a cream pinstripe
• Marquee Stripes — the vertical stripe in nine versions, with a fine line texture inside each band
• Icons — well-known house designs, from tropical palms in green on salmon pink to abstract fans
• Geometric II — in Tile, staggered blue and white hexagons seem to step out of the wall
• Foundation — designs that read as plaster, wood, weave, stone, marble or concrete on the wall
• Curio — wood grain, crystal, mineral and coral drawn as line patterns in camel, black and bronze

Where Cole & Son wallpaper works best

American homes give these designs room to work. With smooth drywall, tall ceilings and open plans, one papered wall often stays in view from the next room, so a single accent wall in an entryway or bedroom does a lot. In a two-story entryway or stairwell, a tall vertical pattern like Woods draws the eye upward.

A powder room is where a dark colorway needs no restraint. There is little daylight to compete with, and all four walls read at once. The same goes for a study or library. In a dining room or living room, the fuller prints add warmth. A bedroom often calls for something quieter, such as a pinstripe in cream and beige. Above a chair rail, choose a tighter repeat so the pattern doesn't argue with the millwork.

Because the style lines run from graphic modern to botanical, Cole and Son wallpaper fits almost any interior. Before you commit, upload a photo of your own wall to the Room Visualizer and see the design in place.

Hanging and caring for Cole and Son wallpaper

Many designs come on a nonwoven ground, which makes hanging and later removal considerably easier. That helps when you're working from a ladder in a stairwell.

Check the pattern repeat before you order. A large print or a pronounced repeat has to line up from strip to strip, so a professional paperhanger is worth it to keep the design matched at every seam and avoid costly mistakes. Order enough for the whole room at once rather than topping up later.

Each roll we sell counts as one American double roll, so you can compare our quantities with a domestic estimate directly. Our wallpaper calculator works out how many rolls you need, and European rolls versus American double rolls explains the difference in detail.

Buy Cole & Son wallpaper at Selected Wallpapers

Selected Wallpapers sends Cole & Son wallpaper to the United States from the Netherlands. Prices are shown in USD on each product page. Every US order ships Delivered Duty Paid, with duties and taxes included, so nothing is collected at your door. You'll find the details on our US shipping page.

Color on a screen is not color on a wall, and a sample lets you judge color and texture in your own light. Torn between two colorways, or matching a print to paint you already own? Send us a message and our team will advise you personally.