Stripes were a key trend in the spring/summer ’08 catwalk collections, with leading fashion houses Chanel and Anna Sui using them to make a bold statement.

From bold monotone bands to colourful summery “deckchair” stripes - and even wavy tiger stripes, incorporating the other hot fashion trend for animal prints, there is a look to suit all moods and settings.

By cleverly combining sharp lines, complimentary patterns and trend colours, you can use stripes to give your interiors a fresh new look and create a look that is both fashionable and enduring.

To help you to select the right look for your home, Wilman Interiors’ design manager, Michelle Todd offers some tips on how to make the most of the stripes trend:

• Bright colours cut through with narrow black bands can look fantastic on curtains and accessories, to add drama to an otherwise neutral room.
  Subtle dots can also be combined with stripes to add interest.
• Wilman Interiors’ Tempo collection in Cameo, includes a burnt orange woven fabric with thin black stripes and understated dots – ideal for dressing a feature window.
• Mock animal print stripes and monochrome bands can create a really glamorous look.
  The Poeme collection in Granite pictured here, features broad black bands, stylish wavy stripes and warm neutral backgrounds.
• Multi-coloured stripes can have a summery “deckchair” feel – why not upholster an armchair in bright stripes, to create a stunning focal point for your living room?

For more inspiration visit:

Web: http://www.wilmaninteriors.com

The traditional damask designs of the 18th century, have remained popular since the day they were first woven; more than 200 years later, they are still a fundamental design element of many classically inspired drawing rooms and living rooms.

From their Limoges collection, Northcroft Fabrics offer an authentic replica of an 18th century French fabric, in an extensive colour selection, featuring a typically regal and symmetrical design of stylised flowers and leaves.   Suitable for both upholstery and curtains, Limoges retails at around £44.00 per metre.

• Fabric details:
  . Made from: 50% cotton, 50% modacrylic.
  · Colours: Cream, Beige, Donkey Rose, Brick Red, Maroon,
  Pompadour, Blue, Eau de Nil, Bottle, Gold and Grey.
  · Pattern repeat: 45cms.
  · Width: 140cms.

Limoges can be co-ordinated with Loire, which is a small repeat pattern, designed as a contrasting fabric and available in the same colour selection; both fabrics are fire-retardant to domestic standard and have a soil resistant finish.

Northcroft Fabrics specialises in high quality fabrics in classic designs and offers an extensive selection of fine silks, velvets, damasks and printed fabrics.

Web: http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk

Tel: (01628) 488 700

Digetex is a leading UK luxury home furnishing brand, designing and manufacturing furnishing fabrics, wall coverings, murals, roller, panel and roman blinds, bespoke wall art canvasses and a wide range of soft furnishing accessories.

Their philosophy is to combine creativity and innovation with quality designs and products - “Wallpaper is back but this time it’s different - a means to express your individuality - playing with scale and using your wall as a canvas.”

The business offers bespoke interior products, which are individually designed and made to client specification, at optimal standards of quality scale and colour at competitive prices; work can also be created from the client’s own images.

Wall Art offers the ultimate creative visual medium:

Gallery style art canvasses are printed onto 100% cotton-canvas with Digi-Gard for added durability; stretched over a stable wooden frame for contemporary style with no size limitation.

The spectacular murals are all size specific and digitally printed to client specification.

Featured here is the Ying Mural from their First Emperor range.

The Digetex samples encompassing over 7,000 images/designs from Classic Masters, Fine to Pop Art, Zen and Contemporary, to name but a few can be viewed online.

There is no minimum order and prices start at £35 per panel for murals, £20 per metre for fabric, £40 a canvas and £65 for a blind.

Web: http://www.digetex.com/collection.asp 

Tel: (0161) 873 8891

Northcroft Fabrics specialises in high quality fabrics in classic designs and offers a vast selection of velvets including plain, striped and Gaufrage in cotton, silk, linen and mohair combinations.

Latest additions to their outstanding collection of velvets are authentic, plain antique velvets made from 100% silk pile and a co-ordinating Gaufrage design.

The Buckingham features a plain, slubbed texture with a closely woven velvet pile and is a natural choice for period properties and grand decorating schemes.

Voltaire is a co-ordinating Gaufrage design made on the Buckingham silk and inspired by 18th century, traditional French fabric designs.

Both fabrics are available in ten traditional colours and are specifically designed for re-upholstering antique furniture and also suitable for full drop formal curtains.

Featured here are the Buckingham and Voltaire both in Brunswick Green.

Buckingham information:
Pile: 100% silk
Construction: antique velvet i.e. slubbed velvet.
Colours stocked: Stone11, Mole 22, Tan 34, Cardinal 44, Claret 54, Aubergine 56, Flanders Blue 64, Brunswick Green 72, Emerald 78, Bronze 86
Plain fabric – no pattern repeat, 137 cms. wide
Retails for around £180 per metre.

Voltaire information:
Pile: 100% silk
Construction: antique velvet i.e. slubbed velvet
Colours stocked: as listed above.
Pattern repeat: 60 cms. 137 cms wide
Retails for around £220 per metre.

Web: http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk

Tel: (01628) 488700

Do you have ideas and dreams of creating a unique look in your home, but require a helping hand to put it into action?

John Lewis has lots of solutions, with its array of useful and bespoke services for the home, to enable customers to turn their creative ideas into reality.

A choice of everything from fabric to flooring, and anything in between, to ensure that their home will look and feel exactly how they imagine.

As part of the Standard Furnishing Advice Service, a free one-to-one consultation is available in John Lewis’s stores with one of their experienced Furnishing Advisors, to help turn a favourite fabric, magazine image or simply an idea into a whole new scheme for a room.

Express Furnishing is also now available online and this service is ideal for customers who can’t wait to get cracking with their new look.

The express service will make any soft furnishings from curtains and bed covers, to cushions and blinds to specification in 7 days; with over 200 fabrics to choose from including Designer’s Guild, Osborne and Little and Cath Kidston to fulfil the dream.

Customers can opt for the Premier Service, which is a home visit including measurements, a style board and the attendance of an advisor, to oversee the delivery and fitting, at a cost of just £200, which is refundable against any purchases made.

Web: http://www.johnlewis.com

Tel: (08456) 049 049

The TSA is the Trade Association for the laundry and dry cleaning industry in the UK, covering 2,500 high street dry cleaners.

It is the consumers’ one stop shop for finding a good quality dry cleaner and should they have an issue with an item serviced by a member, the TSA is there to advise and inform them on possible action.

With the trend for hunting in vintage and junk shops so popular at the moment, finding a wonderful but slightly grubby antique throw, or rug can be very exciting, however people are often put off making that final purchase, when they consider the difficulty of restoring the item to its former glory.

This is where the TSA can provide the solution, by offering advice and recommending, which of their members can provide the best service for that particular piece.

The cleaning and repair services TSA members can offer include:

Soft furnishings Asbestos de-contamination Beaded Gowns
Bridal Gowns Carpets/Rugs Church Robes
Curtains Dyeing Express Service
Hat Horse Blankets Pillows/Duvets Repairs/Alteration Re Waxing Silk Suede/Leather

Web: http://www.tsa-uk.org
Tel: (020) 8863 7755

This year IKEA is encouraging Britain to become brave not beige and have come up with a multi-coloured range of fresh textile ideas and designs to bring new life into your home.

Many British homes have become safe and similar using neutral beige tones for decoration, due to lack of knowledge of how to use colour and fear of getting it wrong.

IKEA aim to inspire you to be brave and reject your beige rooms, in favour of a vibrant, contemporary home packed with style and panache.

Make your home blossom with hundreds of new designs in textiles at IKEA, where everything is coordinated to help you create the style in your home exactly as you want it.

Our picture reveals just some of the enormous IKEA range of stunning metre fabrics to inspire your own creativity in design, or vivacious ready-made products to dress up your home this spring.

Textiles are the ultimate expression for the home –anything is possible!

Visit the innovative and informative online demos on the IKEA web site, to see how you can furnish every room in your home with textiles to dazzling effect:

Web:  http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB

Tel:   (0845) 355 1141

Property expert, journalist and TV presenter Alison Cork is passionate about bargains and became fed up with paying over the odds for homeware, so she searched the UK to find the very best for less and saved thousands of pounds in the process.

In order to share her secrets of where to find top quality goods at substantially reduced prices with you, she has launched a bargain buying website www.homesandbargains.co.uk.

Want to know where the best carpets and rugs are available at half price?

Or, the very best fabric usually shown at the ultra chic Chelsea Harbour - available at up to 80% off?

Now you can when you know where to look!

The website even tells you where to find M&S and Laura Ashley current season furniture at 70% off and where the best hotels sell off their surplus furniture.

Also how to bypass the shops and go straight to the craftsman or manufacturer.

How to get the news about sales before they hit the high street.

Where to find the finest craftsmen and young designers at half the price you would pay in the shops.

The free weekly bargains newsletter tells you where the best bargains are on sale, so that you can plan your shopping trips and save a fortune at the same time.

The website provides a useful archive of all the phone numbers and contacts you will need, plus a discount diary of upcoming events and many informative articles. There are also free weekly giveaways worth thousands of pounds.

Everyone loves a bargain, so visit The Homes and Bargains website to find yours:

Web:  http://www.homesandbargains.co.uk

Northcroft Fabrics has introduced nineteen new vibrant colours to its Rochelle range for the spring and summer, including five vibrant, contemporary hues: cerise, aqua, lime, pea green and silt.

Rochelle is a fine, 100% cotton pile velvet, which wears well and is particularly suited to upholstery, curtains and soft furnishings.

The manufacture of velvet fabrics dates back to the Egyptians 2000BC. Typically, velvets are heavy with a dense, soft pile – ideal for rich, plain colours and synonymous throughout history with royalty, wealth and opulence.
 
There are now 46 colours in the Rochelle range and this fabric is particularly suited to transform a room with accents of colour for cushions or upholstery and for block colour in curtains.

Rochelle is 140cms wide, has a 100% cotton pile and is a plain, cut velvet.  It retails at around £40.00 per metre.
   
Northcroft Fabrics is a specialised fabric house offering a wide selection of high quality velvets, silks, damask and printed fabrics.

Web:  http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk
Tel:    (01628) 488700

The Warwick range is the latest new curtain/upholstery fabric from
Northcroft Fabrics, which was inspired by classical 17th century French style.

The striking Warwick fabric is a damask weave with a twill construction, giving it an interesting and unusual texture; the design is set against the beige background in seven colours.

Made from 50% cotton, 43% viscose and 7% nylon, the fabric is suitable for hardwearing upholstery as well as soft furnishings and gently draping curtains.

Warwick is 140cm wide with a 61cm pattern repeat and is available in the following colours:
Beige 12, Brown 22, Red 46, Blue 64, Turquoise 70, Green 72 and Gold 84.

Warwick retails at around £60.00 per metre.

Web:  http://www.northcroftfabrics.co.uk
Tel:   (01628) 488700