Moiré has dominated interiors in 2024: this is why
Interior designer Studio Ashby and architect William Smalley recently renovated a Georgian townhouse in Holland Park. The project, which combined a grand scale and a good deal of creative freedom, has plenty of talking points: an Hermès-orange and black guest loo, a doorway lined in marble, a bronze kitchen island. Perhaps my favourite detail, however, comes courtesy of a dressing room (oh, how the one per cent live) entirely swathed in petal-pink moiré from Dedar (pictured above). It’s sublimely decadent and romantic: who could get ready in a room like that without feeling like Botticelli’s Venus?
The choice of moiré was a considered one. This is a textile – traditionally, but no longer exclusively, made from silk – that reflects plenty of light (an important consideration in a small room). It also lends an air of formality and gravitas, no matter the colour.
The fabric’s origins are murky. China enjoyed a near-monopoly on silk production for centuries, and was a country filled with incredibly skilled weavers, so it’s likely that it was the first to discover the technique. Also known as watered silk, moiré has traditionally been created by calendaring. Heat and pressure are applied to folded lengths of fabric with a rib weave using large, textured rollers. This process flattens and distorts parts of the warp and weft, creating an undulating, rippling effect in the cloth, reminiscent of wood grain. Today, moiré-like designs can also be printed onto textiles, ceramics and other surfaces.
From the 17th to the 19th century, this fabric was a byword for ceremony and formality: Queen Victoria and Russian Tsar Peter the Great both wore blue moiré ribbon sashes. It was fashionable in court and evening attire. In 1893, one dressmaker recommended a dinner dress of ‘rose-pink figured moiré’; four years later another advertised one in ‘white mirror velvet’ with a ‘band of white moiré at the neck’. The Victoria & Albert museum possesses an opulent gown made entirely from Prussian-blue moiré embellished with tiny metal buttons and chenille flowers dyed to match.
‘Fabrizia’ cocktail chair
$5060.00 at theinvisiblecollection.com
More recently it was used by designers including Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent. It has also long been popular in interiors. An inventory of textiles at Hampton Court Palace in 1695 indicates that lengths of this silk cloth were hung between tapestries to add visual interest and richness to state rooms.
Three centuries later, in Jacqueline Kennedy’s White House two bergère chairs were upholstered in an apricot moiré, and deep leafy-green swathes of the fabric covered the walls of a salon. In other words, whether you want to entertain like American royalty, or get dressed like a goddess, moiré will always be a good idea.
