Founded in 1990 in Tonbridge, Kent, Galerie has built its name less as a single design house and more as a curator of many. Rather than working to one aesthetic, the company commissions and imports from specialist manufacturers and designers across Europe to bring together well over a hundred collections under one name, offering both its own ranges and exclusive designs sourced from abroad.
That model shows in the two partners behind much of what follows here. Marburg, a family run German manufacturer that has been making wallpaper since 1879 and is now into its fifth generation of ownership, supplies the textured papers, including one of the site's best sellers. Midbec, a Swedish company that started in 1974 simply importing wallpaper from Europe's biggest names, only began commissioning its own original designs in 2014, and it is that newer, in house line that brings us the Scandinavian botanicals further down this page. The range is wide because Galerie's whole approach is to go looking for it, rather than to make it all itself.
Texture that behaves like the real thing
The single best selling design across the whole site is Loft, a jute chevron wallpaper manufactured by Marburg for Galerie, printed with enough depth and shadow that it reads as real woven sisal rather than paper. It is the kind of result that comes from decades of practice with non woven substrates rather than a quick print job. Its top selling colourway is Light Taupe, shown below as a close up of the weave itself rather than a styled room, alongside the design in Beige, a shade lighter and pictured here in situ.
Loft, Beige, by Galerie
Loft, Light Taupe (the site's best seller), by Galerie
Two colourways of the same spring botanical
From the Welcome Home range, one of Galerie's own softer, more mass appeal lines, Rustic Blossom pictures leaves and twigs in a loose, hand drawn composition, finished with a scattering of glimmer. It is shown here in Green, the fresher of the two, and in a softer, warmer neutral, better suited to a room that already leans towards wood and leather.
Rustic Blossom, Green, Welcome Home by Galerie
Rustic Blossom, warm neutral, Welcome Home by Galerie
Heritage botanicals, in two colourways
Sitting a little further up the formality scale is the Heritage collection, aimed more squarely at period homes than Rustic Blossom's easy prettiness. Its Botanic print runs tendrils and budding blooms in diagonal bands rather than scattering them loosely across the ground, and is shown here in Blue and in Green, without tipping into pastiche.
Botanic, Blue, Heritage by Galerie
Botanic, Green, Heritage by Galerie
The Swedish florals of Hanna Wendelbo
Midbec brought on its first in house designer only in 2014, a shift away from pure importing, and Hanna Wendelbo, who joined in 2017 with what the company describes as a passion for flowers and her own garden, is now behind several of Galerie's Swedish designs. Anemone, from the Apelviken collection, is a soft, relaxed floral, while Blomstermala takes a looser hand to organic flowers and foliage in green, pink and red against a pale ground. Both feel closer to a real garden than a formal print.
Anemone, Apelviken by Galerie
Blomstermala by Galerie
A quieter village story
Not every design in the range is quite so garden bound. Bygga Bo, from the Sommarang 2 collection, pictures a sleepy village of stone houses tucked among trees and florals, in green, yellow and red. It reads more like a folk illustration than a botanical, and works well as the one wall that carries the whole room.
Bygga Bo, Sommarang 2 by Galerie
Ester's quiet botanicals
The Ester collection is built around a single idea, calm, nature led motifs in green, repeated across a handful of designs. Lövskog and Hängbjörk are two of them, similar enough in tone to sit in adjoining rooms, different enough in pattern to avoid feeling repetitive.
Lövskog, Green, Ester by Galerie
Hängbjörk, Green, Ester by Galerie
Texture with a stitch effect
Cerra is Galerie's textured range, manufactured without PVC plasticisers or solvents, a quieter cousin of Loft with a very different finish. Riva, in Olive, is a vertical stripe with a semi-solid stitch effect. Cleo, in Dark Linen, takes the same idea and lets the lines run wavy rather than straight, for a softer, more handmade finish.
Riva, Olive, Cerra by Galerie
Cleo, Dark Linen, Cerra by Galerie
Just how wide the range gets
Two more designs, from opposite ends of the catalogue, show how wide Galerie's range really runs, and why a company built on curating rather than a single house style makes sense. Boho Fine Linen is about as quiet as wallpaper gets, cascading ginkgo leaves in rustic tones with a soft, textured finish. Graphics, from the City Romance collection, is its opposite, a metallic medallion pattern in orange and silver grey with a distinctly graphic edge, proof there is a version of Galerie for almost any room.
Boho Fine Linen, Beige, by Galerie
Graphics, Orange/Silver Grey, City Romance by Galerie
Ready to explore the range for yourself?
Browse the full Galerie wallpaper collection for everything mentioned here and more, including the smaller Galerie fabric collection, worth a look if you are matching a scheme rather than shopping for wallpaper alone. Every design above can be ordered as a sample first from its own product page. Visit our sample service page to get started.
