These Most Iconic Fabric Covered Rooms of All Time

summer living at valentinos on the appian way includes a small sitting room designed by stephano mantovani, covered with turquoise and yellow valentino designed fabric marrakesh carpet ostrich egg on table photo by horst p horstcondé nast via getty images. Fabrics have taken center stage in rooms throughout history, but for many, rooms entirely enveloped in fabric, where yards upon yards of glorious textiles cloak everything from the walls to the ceilings, are considered the most entrancing. A design element employed to dramatic effect in some of the greatest rooms of the 20th century, textiles have actually been used to cover walls since the Middle Ages, when thick and expertly woven tapestries lined the halls of drafty stone castles.
Later, during the Renaissance and beyond, luxurious silk damasks were applied to surfaces in the finest houses across Europe, and by the 18th century, tented rooms, mimicking the campaign tents of Emperor Napoleon, became fashionable. Let find out These Most Iconic Fabric Covered Rooms of All Time below.

These Most Iconic Fabric Covered Rooms of All Time

Turkish Delight

Legendary designer Renzo Mongiardino enveloped the London drawing room of Lee Radziwill, seen here in 1966, with a melée of floral and paisley printed Indian cottons that were cut apart and pieced together to create the effect of paneling. That is once of These Most Iconic Fabric Covered Rooms of All Time.
Today, just about any space, from an intimate study with velvet wrapped walls to a light filled breakfast room with a striped circus tent ceiling, can benefit from being covered in fabric. Whether with fully upholstered walls, paper-backed fabric applied as wallpaper, or draped as a full on tent, rooms swathed in fabrics create tranquil and cozy retreats necessary for life today.

Worldly Decadence

An ornate chartreuse silk damask provides an elegant backdrop for an enviable collection of paintings and objets d’art at the New York apartment of interior designers Robert Denning and Vincent Fourcade from 1977. Not only are they comfortable rooms ideal for curling up in at the end of the day, they also provide sound insulating qualities that are just the ticket when working from home requires respites of peace and quiet.

French Empire

Beloved decorator Madeleine Castaing clothed the winter dressing room at her house in Lèves, France, in a fabric of her own design that brings the outdoors in. Rayure Fleurie, a graceful stripe of climbing vines, is available today through Brunschwig & Fils. Be it printed cottons and linen stripes or silk damasks and tapestries, the cocooning effect created by layers of fabrics is sure to make the room the most sought after hideaway in any house. That is once of These Most Iconic Fabric Covered Rooms of All Time.

Prints Charming

Designer Alex Papachristidis chose a lively floral printed cotton by Manuel Canovas to delightfully swathe the dressing room of his Manhattan apartment. You can even take it one step further and cover everything, from the curtains to the sofa and chairs, in one fabulous fabric.
And while the world certainly feels smaller these days with limited travel, there’s something to be said about the transporting nature of a room tented with fabric. Suddenly, when enveloped in an Indian blockprint or Indonesian batik, your drawing room seems to take flight to a faraway land.

Batik Mystique

In 1972, the hallway of fashion designer Diane Von Furstenburg’s New York City apartment, dramatically tented with a graphic Javanese batik fabric, makes for a showstopping entrance. From Lee Radziwill’s opulent Turkish tent and Gloria Vanderbilt’s paean to the patchwork quilt, fabrics have been famously used as backdrops to spaces around the world, and there’s much to learn from these iconic examples. Read on to discover 12 of the most memorable rooms decked head to toe in fabric.

Americana Redux

Fashion icon and society heiress Gloria Vanderbilt took the homespun quilt to new heights by bedecking the walls, ceilings, curtains, and floors of her famous New York City apartment with patchwork, seen here in 1970.

Maximalist Fancy

Walls covered in a luxurious emerald green velvet shimmer by candlelight in this Manhattan drawing room artfully designed by Hutton Wilkinson. That is once of These Most Iconic Fabric Covered Rooms of All Time.

French Reverie

An iconic tree of life pattern by Braquenié enlivens the walls, upholstery, and bed canopy of a light filled guest bedroom at designer Mark Sikes’s home in Los Angeles.