Cole & Son Vivienne Westwood wallpaper collection

Vivienne Westwood wallpaper by Cole & Son: punk graphics, printed with discipline

Vivienne Westwood wallpaper is what you get when a British fashion house hands its motifs to a British wallpaper house. Cole & Son prints the collection, and the pairing is odder than it first looks. The prints carry punk influences set against aristocratic elegance, and Cole & Son brings the attention to detail and durability it is known for. They sit in both camps at once, with historical references running under a contemporary finish.

The five Vivienne Westwood prints, and what each one does to a wall

Hearts scatters the orb logo through a field of hearts, so the emblem reads as ornament before it reads as a logo. Painting hangs framed portraits across the wall and gives you a gallery without a single nail. Punkature sets historical sheet music behind a punk surface for a rebellious effect. Squiggle takes the squiggle motif into a graphic repeat, loose enough to work as a background rather than a statement. Stripe reworks a classic stripe with Westwood’s twist, for clients who want the collection’s nerve without a figurative print. Between them the five run from openly figurative to nearly abstract, and that is the useful axis to choose along.

Placing Vivienne Westwood prints in an American home

A figurative print like Painting or Punkature wants a wall you look at head on: behind a bed, at the end of a hallway, inside a powder room where a guest has nowhere else to look. Hearts and Squiggle are more forgiving and can take a full room without crowding it. Stripe is the calm one, and it holds its own next to furniture that already has plenty to say. Cole & Son keeps the line work crisp at close range, which counts for more in a small room, where nobody stands more than a few steps from the paper. Measure the wall and count your drops twice before ordering: a bold repeat is unforgiving about a run that comes up short, and a later batch can shift slightly in tone.

Related Cole & Son collections to compare

For another Cole & Son collection built around one design name, look at Fornasetti. Marquee Stripes widens the striped choice if Stripe is the print that caught you, and Geometric II covers similar graphic ground to Squiggle. Icons and Whimsical are two more worth setting beside this one. The full Cole & Son wallpaper range is worth a slow scroll before you commit. Order samples of two or three prints and hold them against your own wall in daylight before you decide.