Calico Wallpaper is pleased to introduce Adorn, Sisal, and Jute—a new stop along our design journey. For the first time, Calico Wallpaper is offering metal leaf and grasscloth collections crafted to complement projects of every scale, from intimate residential spaces to large hospitality settings.

Adorn reimagines the timeless beauty of metal leaf as an artful, luminous foundation for bespoke interiors. Crafted with hand-applied sheets of gold, silver, and other precious metallic finishes, this wallpaper substrate brings an ethereal, ever-changing glow to any space.

Jute celebrates the beauty of unadorned material. Crafted from woven jute fibers, this wallpaper honors the essence of texture, inviting the eye to wander across its subtle variations and organic weft. Each panel tells a tactile story – earth-born, imperfect, and alive with nuance.

Rooted in simplicity, Sisal evokes a calm minimalism that allows space to breathe. Its natural hue and honest texture create a grounding presence, embracing light and shadow as part of the design. Untouched by print or pattern, Jute is both canvas and composition – a study in restraint, a celebration of the handwoven.

Photography by Emma McCann.

Lee Broom’s theatrical sensibility means he often dreams up fantastical installations for his namesake brand’s expansive range of furniture and lighting, but it also lends itself well to the wall. Overture, the British designer’s first collection with Calico Wallpaper, harnesses his set design background to capture the drama of drapery in strikingly dimensional prints that transform flat surfaces into stage-like backdrops. “Growing up in the theatre, I became very aware of the power of presentation,” Broom recalls. “I was inspired by the imagination of set designers and their ability to enhance the emotion of the entire performance.” With names like Matinee and Recital, each of the seven colorways toy with light and shadow to evoke motion, illusion, and mood, and are printed on Calico’s signature PVC-free clay-coated paper.

The association between curtains and performance is one reason why the motif is so alluring. In May, the British designer Lee Broom released a new wall covering collection with Calico named Overture that has a trompe l’oeil drapery effect. Broom, who was an actor as a child, has long been fascinated by how set designers were able to use simple materials like fabric and light to transform the stage. According to the designer, the wall covering takes those who experience it on an imaginative journey. ‘Drapery has a natural theatricality to it,’ he says. ‘It’s expressive, fluid, and full of suggestion.’

Rachel Cope, Calico’s creative director and co-founder, appreciates the sense of anticipation the wall covering evokes. It ‘embodies a cinematic stillness – like a breath held just before a curtain rises,’ she says. This emotive quality helps animate rooms. ‘We’re seeing a strong desire for interiors that do more than decorate – they need to narrate, to ground to inspire,’ Cope adds.

What to do with souvenirs from your travels? Do you actually use your teapot from Japan when you want a hot brew or display that vase from Murano on a shelf? For Stephen Burks and Malika Leiper, the duo leading US design practice Stephen Burks Man Made, the answer was to turn them into a decorative wall covering. Working with Calico Wallpaper, the duo transposed their knick-knacks from their cross-continental travels into a 2D wallpaper design that they called Particulaire.

“We started by looking around our home and asking ourselves, ‘What do we decorate the rooms with?’” says Burks. “The answer was objects from our travels. They tell a story both about us and the cultures that we have interacted with.”

Working with the wallpaper firm, which is based in Upstate New York, the creative duo used photographed renderings of their personal mementoes to create a graphic pattern that puts objects from across the globe into conversation while bringing plenty of personality to a room. “The gorilla image is from a young man who we met in Rwanda carving wooden figures. But we also took inspiration from Japan, Senegal, the Dominican Republic and even Brooklyn,” says Burks of the wallpaper. “Our travels are a way for us to get closer to acts of making that involve different techniques and materials,” adds Leiper.

To present the project the two firms created a bespoke mural at the Istituto dei Ciechi in Milan during the city’s recent design week. Since the launch, the Particulaire wallpaper has been made available in 10 colourways ranging from neutral hues to a maroon and sage green. If you find yourself gazing at an unused teapot or vase, perhaps try reaching out to Calico Wallpaper: they might just be the foundation for another unique collection of wallpaper.

When visiting homes for sale in New York’s Hudson Valley, Rachel and Nick Cope, the married founders of the hit brand Calico Wallpaper, developed a code word to indicate, discreetly, that a house was the one—blueberry. It was the pandemic era and the then Brooklyn-based couple had set out to find their own slice of paradise, heeding the siren call of country living. An off-market listing in the town of Ghent promised to be just the refuge they were seeking for their young family. “It checked every box,” recalls Rachel, citing the property’s generous acreage, environmentally conscious construction, pond, and proximity to a like-minded school for their son and daughter. Blueberry.