LRM Presents Les Indiennes Fabric and Wallpaper

August 27th, 2010 by jennifermyers

Dramatic and original patterns from Les Indiennes

The beautiful and exclusive Les Indiennes fabrics and wallpapers are now available through LRM Interior Design. We are very happy to be the sole California representative for this Arizona-based company, as we love their colors, patterns and textures.

In fact, we have had custom fabrics made by Les Indiennes for use in a client project. The clients had a chair that they loved and wanted to work into the bathroom design as a vanity chair. We convinced them to have it reupholstered so that it would fit into the project. Once the canvas was designed, created and ready to be used, we sent it to our upholstery workroom so that they could recover the chair. “The finished product is gorgeous, timeless and detailed,” comments Kristen Rusert, LRMID administrative manager and lover of Les Indiennes designs.

A client's chair gets a new life with Les Indiennes fabric

The way we see it, owner and designer Mary Mulcahy deserves to have her work known throughout the world. Mulcahy fell in love with Indian textiles, and soon saw an opportunity to take the complex traditional designs and creating simple yet authentic patterns that would appeal to a Western market.

Her technique for creating the Les Indiennes patterns sounds easy, but in truth takes skill and inherent talent. Mulcahy extracted and clarified the intricate traditional Indian designs into single motifs and placed them with careful spacing onto a rich, white background. The fabric and wallpaper is made in India, and Les Indiennes is very proud of the fact that they have not tried to “upgrade” or “improve” their existing process. Les Indiennes’ production doe not cause pollution nor does it disrupt the lives of the people in the village—in fact, the company provides fair-trade employment for over 50 families.

Mary Mulcahy uses the ancient technique of Kalamkari, a process which takes 40 days, the skills of a master and the patience of a saint. The fabrics are sun-bleached cotton, and both the fabric and wallpaper are hand-blocked with patterns created in carved wood. The village and environment collaborate to produce this unique fabric with a combination of river washing, rinsing and steaming over a rice-chaff fire set the colors. Talk about natural: the ayurvedic dyes are as natural as can be, derived from plants, earth, rock and roots.

Call LRM Interior Design for a consultation on how we can use these gorgeous, earth-friendly fabrics and wallpapers in your home.