Elmo: a leather library of colours

Colour plays an important role in how we perceive the spaces we use on a daily basis. Warm or natural colours can help us feel safe and relaxed, while bold, bright colours energise us and inspire creativity. The way we decorate different spaces should reflect the activities that will take place within these environments. To achieve this successfully, designers need to be able to choose from the widest possible range of materials and colours.

Swedish leather specialist Elmo is dedicated to providing architects and interior designers with a broad range of leather colours for use in their projects. The company works with British textile designer and colour consultant Georgina Wright to develop collections that reflect the latest directions in design, as well as offering versatility in their application. According to Wright, the resulting ‘library of colours’ allows designers to develop truly unique and diverse solutions. ‘It excites me to see what designers do with the leather colours we create,’ says Wright. ‘They really come alive when you combine them with all sorts of other materials and the results are often surprising.’

The power of colour is amplified when working on larger-scale projects such as workplaces and hospitality or leisure settings. For example, the choice of colour can have a big impact when specifying fabrics or leather for a theatre with a thousand seats or the interiors of a cruise liner. Some contract environments contain a variety of spaces with different styling requirements, meaning a larger range of colours is extremely important. 

Elmo’s versatile collections of aniline, semi-aniline and technical leathers include 300 colours that are reviewed annually to keep them fresh. This expansive palette allows leathers to be matched to upholstery or other design features. ‘The breadth of colour we have with Elmo offers many possibilities to change the atmosphere and mood with colour, which hopefully gives inspiration to architects looking to use leather in their projects,’ suggests Wright.

The cyclical development of Elmo’s colour collections takes place at Wright’s studio near London and at the company’s headquarters in Svenljunga, Sweden. Wright likes to take walks in nature to seek out inspiration, gathering items such as flowers, leaves and moss that she compiles in her own personal library back at her studio. Based on her discoveries, she creates swatches using oil paints on textured paper to see how the colours react to light and shadow. 

The latest Elmo collections draw most of all from nature, which Wright feels makes sense as leather itself is a natural material. Part of leather’s beauty is due to the slight inconsistencies in each individual hide, as well as the way it ages over time. Making new colours is a collaborative process, with the production team at Elmo helping to explore how properties such as the grain and thickness of the leather affect the outcomes. ‘Hopefully, because they’ve come from the natural world, when the colours are brought inside they provide an energy that brings joy and positivity to our daily life,’ says the designer.

Alongside its natural beauty and character, leather possesses several other qualities that make it suitable for use in public spaces. The material is durable, which reduces its cost over a project’s lifetime, and sustainable, which reduces its impact on the environment. Elmo’s products are also certified to various industry standards relating to hygiene, fire safety and lightfastness. Perhaps most importantly, leather brings colour, texture and tactility to interiors that no other upholstery material can match. ‘It’s such a sensual product,’ says Wright. ‘You’re not just experiencing the colour, you’re also experiencing the smell and the feel of the material.’ It seems there’s more to leather than meets the eye.

© Architonic

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