Damask is that rare pattern with a birthplace written into its name. It comes from Damascus, the Syrian city that sat at the crossroads of the Silk Road, where the intricate, reversible weaving of figured silk was brought to such perfection that medieval Europe simply named the cloth after the city. Those lustrous, self-coloured silks, their patterns catching the light as the eye moved, became the ultimate symbol of wealth and refinement, and they lined the walls of palaces, cathedrals and the grandest houses in the land.
The genius of a damask is its subtlety. The pattern is not printed on top of the wall so much as woven into it, a play of matt and sheen that reveals itself only as you move, and the best damask wallpaper still works that way. Here is what makes one, and the designs on the site that earn the name.
"A damask is not a pattern on the wall so much as a pattern within it, revealed by the light."
From the Silk Road to the Stately Home
A damask is defined by its structure rather than its subject: one motif, mirrored about a vertical axis, set in a half-drop repeat, usually built from scrolling acanthus around a central medallion. Raffles in Slate, from Sketch Twenty 3's Discovery, is that formula at its most classical and most restrained, the pattern picked out barely a shade from its ground so that the wall reads as texture until the light moves across it. Castellane in Indigo, from Nina Campbell's Honfleur, is the same structure in a quite different hand: at its centre sits a pomegranate, one of the oldest damask motifs of all, drawn loose and flat in two tones of blue rather than the crisp tonal European manner.
Raffles, Slate by Sketch Twenty 3
Castellane, Indigo by Nina Campbell
Understated Opulence
For all its palatial associations, damask has a discretion that keeps it feeling elegant rather than showy, and it chimes perfectly with the current appetite for grown-up, considered glamour. It is opulence with the volume turned down. Blackthorn Damask in Fresh Meadow, from Hoopla Walls' Eden II, shows how far the form can travel and still hold: hedgerow blossom, of all things, worked into a proper mirrored damask and kept almost tone on tone in soft green. Cassia in Multi, by Laura Ashley, softens it further, the ornament broken up into pale blues and terracottas so that it reads as a pretty all-over print rather than a grand one.
Blackthorn Damask, Fresh Meadow by Hoopla Walls
Cassia, Multi by Laura Ashley
That restraint is also what makes it so useful. A damask flatters everything around it and competes with nothing, which is a rare and valuable quality in a bold pattern.
"Damask is opulence with the volume turned down."
How and Where to Use It
Damask was made for rooms with a sense of occasion. A tone-on-tone design brings quiet grandeur to a dining room, a drawing room or a principal bedroom, an unshowy backdrop to good furniture, while a higher-contrast one turns up the drama for a hallway or a chimney breast. Rococo in Oasis, from Lewis & Wood's History Papers, is the grandest here and the one for that: an eighteenth-century ornament redrawn at scale, doing exactly what a damask did in a panelled room three hundred years ago. Simply Severn in Cochineal and Willow, from Morris & Co's Simply Morris, is the one for a hallway, and it is shown in exactly that: a mirrored acanthus in soft pink and green, formal enough to hold a corridor and gentle enough to pass a doorway every day without tiring. Its colourway is named for cochineal, the old red dye, which is the sort of detail Morris himself would have insisted on.
Rococo, Oasis by Lewis & Wood
Simply Severn, Cochineal & Willow by Morris & Co
Keep the surrounding scheme calm and let the light do the work. Look to Nina Campbell, Lewis & Wood and Sketch Twenty 3 for damasks from the classical to the reinvented, and order a sample before you commit, since the shifting matt-and-sheen quality that makes a damask so special is exactly what a flat screen cannot convey.
And if you want the thing the story began with, Regal Damask in aqua and gold, from Galerie, belongs to a collection called Classic Silks, which is exactly right: this is the woven silk of Damascus turned back into paper, gilding and all.
For a thousand years, damask has been the pattern of those who could have anything. It still lends a room that unmistakable air: settled, gracious and quietly sure of itself.
Ready for a Little Grandeur?
Browse the full Damask collection, or see where it sits among the wider heritage designs in Classic & Traditional and Jacobean. If you are not sure how a tone-on-tone design will read in your own light, our Sample Service lets you order a swatch of any design before you commit to a full roll.
Regal Damask, Aqua & Gold by Galerie
