Tales of textures and colours: Casamance’s latest wallcoverings and fabrics

It might seem self-evident – but the walls of the places we live in are some of life’s most impactful surfaces; swathes of space that provide calm, stimulus and a means for large-scale self-expression.

It’s a holistic notion prevalent in the wallpapers, wallcoverings and fabrics created by French brand Casamance. Founded in 2000, the multi-department company has since carved a niche as a purveyor of honed palettes, varied textures and a panoply of visual motifs, fashioned in materials of exemplary quality and, despite their pan-global influences, a very French level of elegance.

It’s all exemplified in the brand’s six newest collections. Both timeless and highly contemporary, their designs are bathed in glowing colours inspired by the vibrant landscapes of South America and Asia, and geometric patterns – created using innovative techniques and rendered in sophisticated velvets, gauzy voiles and embroidered sisal (a fibrous plant native to Mexico).

Take Casa Azul. The technicolour nexus of the new sets is a voyage into the heart of Mexico – a world of painterly florals, dreamlike hues and dense, tropical formations of leaves, flower buds and petals. Some of the designs are truly vivid – the mural-style, wallpaper-as-art of Nahua, for one. Others are more textural, with tactile fibres taking the place of figurative designs, as in the shimmering, bottle-green checkerboarding of Mestizo. What’s more, the pieces are non-woven backed vinyl and reassuringly easy to install given their striking aesthetics.

Panoramas 3, meanwhile, is a collection of papers hand-drawn by Casamance’s stylists, ‘inspired by reality and sculpted by the imaginary’ and manifested as totemic landscapes. Invariably, the wall-sized designs are both lyrical and eye-catching, from the sylvan canopy of Nosara, with its hints of Rousseau (in either burnished gold, browns and whites; or a subtler green iteration); to Elephantine, reminiscent of the South Asian subcontinent with its upright herons and waterfowl, and petal-shaped backgrounds recalling the sinuous architecture of New Delhi’s Baháʼí Lotus Temple. 

A wallcovering range rooted in Japanese aesthetics and culture, Hikari translates to ‘light’ in Japanese. Its revitalising forms – meldings of innovatively embroidered velvet appliqués on sisal and natural materials – are defined in the textural zig-zags of Kasane; the flowing lines of the Midcentury-style geometric hangings, in dusky greys and browns, of the eponymous Hikari; and the muted woven papers of Kira, evoking the ascetic serenity of a ryokan.

From the sky to something more tangibly elemental, West Bay’s alfresco fabrics channel the crystalline waters of the eponymous Honduran beach and the Colombian coastline. The hazy, striped pastels of Espanto and West Bay may be winsome, but these are pieces made for the demands of outdoor environments; resistant to weathering from sunlight, chlorine and salt water thanks to their solution-dyed weave, plus washable, impervious to mildew and quick-drying. 

Finally, the double-width, metallic-flecked sheer linens of the Mariposa collection are as light and gossamer as the name suggests (it means ‘butterfly’ in Spanish). One of the range’s references, dubbed Coryphée, is a particularly perfect example of this: created in 100% linen, delicately woven with classical cross motifs, the wide voile evokes the movement of the corps de ballet – the second tier in the hierarchy of the Paris Opera’s dancers (below the principals), led by the titular Coryphée, or soloist. It all pairs perfectly, Casamance explains, with the more robust chenilles of Impeteuse, harnessing the fuzzy, piled fabric – not least when used to upholster a piece of evergreen Midcentury furniture.

The variety is conspicuous, but all six collections are defined by the brand’s eye for meticulous function and form; cherry-picking natural signifiers and rendering them into designs both minimal and beautifully pictorial. Factor in the juxtaposition of textures and weights – from rough-hewn and heavily tactile, to ethereal and floating – and you’re a world away from the often workaday world of wallcoverings and fabrics.

Whether undulating tranquillity or eye-popping maximalism, Casamance elevates a space in fine fashion

Learn more about the collections on Casamance’s website or the Architonic catalogue

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