Wallpaper made for wallflowers

Image credit: Michael Angove 2010

Being a huge fan of wallpaper it’s not easy to single out specific designs. To be honest, if I had enough walls in my house (and if I thought it was a look I could get away with) I’d have a different print or pattern on every wall. But I don’t – and neither would I get away with it, so that calls for a bit of favouritism…

Image credit: Michael Angove 2010

Having first stumbled across Michael Angove’s stand at 100% Design two years ago, and fallen in love with the delicate patterns of a unique wallpaper designer who looks to flora and fauna for design currency, I’ve long since had his work at the top of my interiors ‘wish list’ …not to mention the fact that Michael himself hails from a town only a few minutes drive from my own South Wales home. Which is why, when the Welsh designer announced that his newly revised website was live and ready for business last week, I was scrolling pages of chinoiserie-inspired gold and platinum gilded wallpaper within milliseconds.

After all, what more of an excuse does one need to browse page after page of wallpapers so aptly named as Wisteria, Magnolia, Clematis, Fir and Lilium? And no, nothing unique in the names I agree, but one look and you’ll see that the designs themselves are far from ‘standard’ with print descriptions such as ‘Sprawling Wisteria heralds from the Peak District and is loved for the exquisite butterflies from the aviary at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. Blue Sacra beetles and a very discrete and delicate praying mantis lie within the design. A shy butterfly will only be found by the most patient’.

Image credit: Michael Angove 2010

Look even further and you might discover a delicately camouflaged butterfly, beetle or ‘nimble spider’ that Michael suggests might be trying to hide from us… as the designer explains that just like in nature itself, you never know what could be hiding behind the leaves.