Toile

Toile du Juoy (or simply toile) means cloth in French. When most people talk about toile, they are usually referring to a very specific cloth that has graced the walls, windows and furniture of formal rooms and elegant homes for hundreds of years. Toile will always be a formal fabric but people have been using it in less formal ways, giving it a friendly reputation.

• Pastoral images of the French countryside may have been used on toile for hundreds of years. Today's uses for this fabric have made it the newest print on the block as it can give a lot of visual impact for the buck.

Figure A

Classic toile is usually hand-blocked or printed on a creamy background. But the new fabrics are bolder in their color ways with gold or saffron-colored backgrounds with blue or white printing (figure A).

Figure B

For centuries, toile du Jouy has been a designer favorite used to drape or cover every inch of furniture and wall space in a room (figure B). Excessive to some, it is timeless to others with a very practical side (if you're not an expert wallpaper hanger, the busy patterns are forgiving plus they mask structural imperfections).

Figure C

Use toile in a scaled-back fashion on upholstered furniture. A sofa in a lime green toile pays homage to classic design in a fresh, updated way (figure C). New toile fabrics retain their regal expression, but color selections allow it to appear less formal than in the past.

It has an intimacy and elegance without being too formal or too fancy. Mix fine things with items from a thrift shop or a flea market.

Figure D

Toile imparts charm and is adaptable to different spaces--just about anything that you can put fabric or paper on can be covered in toile.

Look for unusual uses of toile on accessories like frames, baby bedding and dog beds (figure D).

toile fabrics: Luberon, Green; The Four Seasons, Spring; The Four Seasons, Summer ; Enchanted Forest, Rose; Sungari, Brick (Grey Watkins, Ltd.)

toile slipcovered chair (Brunschwig & Fils, Inc.)

lime green toile couch (Oskar Huber Furniture)

yellow and blue toile couch (Country Swedish)

Resources
fabric - Grey Watkins, Ltd.
Open to the trade only.
Grey Watkins, Ltd.
979 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
USA
Phone: 212-755-6700
Fax: 212-371-2358
Email: info@greywatkins.com

furniture - Oskar Huber Furniture
Oskar Huber Furniture
254 West Swedesford Road
Berwyn, PA 19312
USA
Phone: 610-251-9909
Fax: 610-251-9914
URL: www.oskarhuber.com

furniture and fabrics - Country Swedish
Viewers can call Country Swedish for more information or a fabric sample, but the company only sells to designers.
Country Swedish
22 Elizabeth St.
Norwalk, CT 06854
USA
Phone: 203-855-1106
Toll Free Phone: 888-807-9333
Fax: 203-855-0181
Email: info@countryswedish.com
URL: www.countryswedish.com

slipcovers - Brunschwig & Fils, Inc. - Atlanta
Open to the trade only.
Brunschwig & Fils, Inc. - Atlanta
Website: www.brunschwig.com
Guests
Eric Lysdahl, ASID
Owner, Eric Lysdahl, Inc.
960 Madison Avenue, #5E
New York , NY 10021
Phone: 212-717-5121
Fax: 212-717-2554
E-mail: info@ericlysdahl.com
Website: www.ericlysdahl.com
Also in this Episode

Smart Design : Episode SDN-106
•	Neutral Tones
•	Toile
•	Artful Design
•	Embroidery