Few design empires have humbler beginnings. In 1953, inspired by a handicrafts exhibition at the V&A, a young Welshwoman named Laura Ashley and her husband Bernard spent ten pounds on wood, dye and a length of linen, and began hand-printing scarves and tea towels at their kitchen table in a small Pimlico flat.
One of those early Victorian-style headscarves ended up around Audrey Hepburn's neck in Roman Holiday, and the business was away. Within a few decades it had become one of the most recognisable British brands in the world: a whole romantic universe of sprigged florals, soft colours and English country calm that millions of people bought into completely.
"It began with ten pounds, a length of linen and a kitchen table in Pimlico."
Why the Romance Came Back
Laura Ashley herself died in 1985, and the brand has had a turbulent time of it since, passing through administration in 2020 and into the hands of new owners who have relaunched it from the archive. But the look she created, gentle, floral and nostalgic, has proved far more durable than any boardroom drama, and it is more wanted now than it has been in years.
For a while the very prettiness that made the name a household word fell out of fashion, swept aside by a decade of hard-edged minimalism. The pendulum has swung back with real force. The movements the internet has christened cottagecore and grandmillennial are really the same instinct under new names: a love of florals, frills and heritage pattern, and of rooms that feel nurturing rather than impressive. Lingmell Trail and Pussy Willow, both from the current SS26 collection, are the gentlest expression of it; Elderwood and Forsythia, from Volume One, have a little more swagger.
Lingmell Trail, Antique Green by Laura Ashley
Pussy Willow, Seaspray by Laura Ashley
Elderwood, Natural by Laura Ashley
Forsythia, Sunshine by Laura Ashley
"The pretty home was never about fashion. It was about comfort, and comfort always comes back."
A Whole Family of Kindred Spirits
Laura Ashley is far from alone in this. A whole family of houses shares that romantic, nostalgic sensibility, each with its own accent. Cath Kidston brings a brighter, wittier take on vintage English charm, nowhere better than in the hand-drawn menagerie of Painted Kingdom or the small birds and roses of Birds & Roses.
For a gentler, Scandinavian romance, two Swedish houses do it beautifully. Boråstapeter, the country's oldest wallpaper maker, has the heritage florals and folk-inflected prints, Flower Buds from Adorn among them. And Sandberg brings a hand-painted delicacy that feels romantic in a cooler, more Nordic key, as Honey Annie from Rosa & Friends shows.
Painted Kingdom, Pink by Cath Kidston
Birds & Roses, Spring by Cath Kidston
Flower Buds, Light Blue by Boråstapeter
Honey Annie, Rosa & Friends by Sandberg
How to Wear It Now
The one trap to avoid is the head-to-toe matchiness of the style's 1980s heyday, when the same sprig covered the walls, the curtains, the bed and very possibly the tissue box. The modern way is lighter and more confident: let one lovely pattern lead and keep the rest of the room calmer, setting a floral against a plain painted wall or a piece of modern furniture so it reads as a choice rather than a time capsule.
The darker, moodier colourways are the ones that give the look a grown-up edge. Charcoal Rosa takes Sandberg's painted roses somewhere almost nocturnal, and Skogsstjärna, from Boråstapeter's Nordic Folk, shows how much character a small print carries in an awkward attic room.
Charcoal Rosa, Rosa & Friends by Sandberg
Skogsstjärna, Blue by Boråstapeter
Choose a design you genuinely love, since the whole point of this look is that it should make you happy, and order a sample to see those soft colours in your own light. Browse the florals, the country and cottage papers and the small prints for more in the same spirit. Romance, it turns out, is not a trend to be timed. It is simply the pleasure of living somewhere that feels like home, and that, as Laura Ashley understood from her kitchen table, never goes out of fashion.
