The Archive Prints fabric collection House of Hackney

The Archive Prints fabric by House of Hackney: two floral patterns on a coloured ground

The Archive Prints fabric collection by House of Hackney brings together two floral patterns. Both are realistically drawn, yet they fill the surface in very different ways. One lets plants grow tall and widely spaced on terracotta, while the other sets a dense bouquet of flowers on dusty pink. What they share is a coloured ground instead of white or cream, so yellow, red and green stand out warmly against it. Your choice is mainly between space and fullness: stems with air between them, or a pattern in which flower follows flower.

Flora Delanica and Avalon: patterns in The Archive Prints fabric collection

Flora Delanica fabric is a large-scale botanical drawing. Poppies, yellow irises, white narcissi, striped lilies, cornflowers, tulips and orchids stand on long, vertical stems among narrow leaves, always with a strip of terracotta ground in between. Deep red, dark green, white, yellow and blue give the flowers their colour. In the photo the pattern continues from wall to curtain, so that window and wallpaper form a single picture. Avalon fabric, by contrast, works small and dense. Yellow and orange sunflowers, red blooms and green tendrils lie so close together that hardly any of the dusty pink ground remains visible, in the tradition of chintz. This cotton-linen fabric hangs as a curtain tied back with cord and tassel, and the pattern stays clearly legible even in the folds.

House of Hackney fabric from The Archive Prints at window and wall

Flora Delanica calls for height. Its vertical structure comes into its own on a long curtain drop or an entire wall, and the terracotta ground pairs well with green-painted woodwork and a view of trees. Avalon is given room in a calmer setting. Against a taupe-pink wall with white panelling, the curtain becomes the busiest surface in the room, and a leopard-print pouffe beside it shows that you can happily add yet another pattern.