Surface View

“Effortless style that stands the test of time.”

Conran and vintage fabrics; it’s Surface View heaven. Conran Fabrics, the company, dates back to the 1950s when a young Terence Conran, swept up by the Festival of Britain, established Conran Fabrics Ltd and Conran Furniture Ltd. His aim back then, as it remains to this day, was to make great design accessible and affordable. His passion has shaped the British design landscape ever since. Many of us have grown up surrounded by the influences of the Festival of Britain and the rise of the pared back look extolled by Conran and his contemporaries, so we jumped at the chance of pulling together a small but beautifully formed collection of these design classics.

Although Conran Fabrics ceased trading in the 1970s, fortunately for us many of the designs are in the Victoria and Albert Museum archive, which has a long tradition of holding influential and iconic designs in safe keeping. All of which meant that we could browse the real originals, each one carefully documented by hand and presented to us so we could pick our favourites. Our chosen designs have since been specially photographed and digitally remastered by us, so that we can offer these designs as highly detailed prints, capturing the weave of the cloth and the age worn beauty of these originals. You might have seen them featured as a backdrop to Sir Terence Conran’s recent furniture launch - the Barton Range - which is in collaboration with Ercol, another design giant and 1950s celebrity.

In our creatively spoiled age it’s sometimes easy to forget how ground-breaking these designs were in their time. If we had to pick just one? Leaf by Terence Conran. So graphically simple and with an effortless style that stands the test of time.