Morris & Co fabrics

Morris & Co fabrics are built on patterns drawn by hand long before anyone wove or printed them, and that origin is still legible in the cloth. Leaves overlap and stems double back on themselves. Up close the drawing is dense; from across a room it settles into texture and color, so one design can sit on a sofa and at a window at once.

Weaves, prints and velvet in the Morris & Co fabrics range

The woven qualities have a matte, faintly grainy surface, with the pattern built into the cloth rather than laid on top. The prints are flatter and more graphic, with crisper edges between ground and motif. Velvet is the outlier: short pile, deeper color, a tone that shifts as you pass. Set them beside our velvet fabrics and floral fabrics overviews.

Choosing these designs by pattern scale

Scale decides more than color. A large repeat needs height to unfold, so it belongs on full-length drapery or a headboard under 9 ft (2.74 m) ceilings. A tighter drawing survives being cut up and holds its shape on a dining chair seat. For seating you use daily, compare weights in our upholstery fabrics; for anything that hangs, the curtain fabrics pages show it in a lighter cloth.

The Morris & Co archive behind the patterns

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. opened its doors in London in 1861, and a renaming in 1875 turned it into Morris & Co., with William Morris at the head. His own works stood south of London, at Merton Abbey, and there he refined block printing and the indigo-discharge method, both using natural dyes. Strawberry Thief dates from 1883; the thrushes in it were the birds Morris caught at Kelmscott Manor, in his own kitchen garden. Willow Bough followed in 1887. The logbooks, samples and original wooden blocks now sit in an archive Sanderson Design Group maintains outside London.

The collection room by room

These cloths land in the rooms that stay put: drapery in a formal dining room, a slipcovered chair in the primary bedroom, a window seat in a breakfast nook. A powder room is small enough that one Roman shade sets the tone. Paper and cloth share drawings here, so start with the Morris & Co wallpaper collection and work back to the fabrics underneath. The Unfinished Works puts unpublished archive designs onto cloth for the first time, and a pair of cushions carries a motif into a room without committing a window.

Ordering the range by the meter

Cloth is cut by the meter, 39.4 in (1 m), so convert your yardage first. Then ask for a sample. A screen flattens color and texture; a piece held against the drywall and the chair it has to live with does not. We ship from the Netherlands, and duties and taxes are included in the price shown. Stuck between two colorways? Ask us how each reads in low north light.