Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton Wall paper and fabrics!

Cecil Beaton is famous for his photographs of society beauties – monuments to 1930s romanticism that capture the fall of a perfect silk gown and the crescent of a pencilled eyebrow – as well as of the Queen, Marilyn Monroe and Winston Churchill. Much like Mario Testino today, Beaton created a gilded world of beauty.Andrew Ginger, the managing director of Beau desert, a Wiltshire-based interior design company, had long swooned over Beaton’s glamour when he decided to revive it in a thoroughly modern way. If Beaton’s world is so beautiful, he reasoned, why not put it on our walls, curtains and sofas?

Ginger knew that Beaton was a man of many talents, not only a photographer but also a diarist, journalist and costume designer. Ironically, what Ginger did not realise was that Beaton was also a textile designer. In 1948 Beaton produced designs for the fabric maker Zika Ascher, who commissioned designs from such greats of the day as Matisse, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson. The fabrics were used by Balenciaga, Dior and Lanvin. Ginger discovered this by chance: 'I bought a rose-print scarf on eBay,’ he remembers, 'and it came with a note from the owner saying, “This is by Beaton and is very special.”’

The trail was set. After discussion with Ascher’s heir, two years ago Ginger and his partner, Roger Barnard, acquired the licence to bring the prints back to life on silk, cotton, linen and wallpaper. The Beaton fabric collection, comprising six floral designs with matching check and stripe coordinates (designed by Ginger), has been a huge success. 'We felt strongly that Beaton’s designs were meant to be used, not on a shelf in a museum,’ Ginger says. 'We wanted to extend his legacy to a new generation.’

 Cecil Beaton fabrics and wallpaper. Article from Topix