Manuel Canovas founded his eponymous Paris textile house in 1963 with a debut collection of large-scale patterns in bold, striking colour combinations, a real departure from the comparatively restrained furnishing trends of the time. It caused a stir, and it set the tone for everything that followed. Sixty years on, that same conviction still runs through every roll that carries his name.
A Trained Eye, Drawn to the World
Born in Paris in 1935, Canovas studied art and archaeology at the École du Louvre and the École des Beaux-Arts, where he developed a fascination with different cultures, pre-Columbian art in particular. That training shows in the range on offer here: a gilded Japanese garden scene, a tumble of tropical palms, a black-and-white toile of leopards prowling through jungle canopy, the work of an eye trained on history and permanently curious about the world beyond France.
Geishas (Papiers Peints Vol 7)
"All my life I have liked big motifs. They feel more elegant, more generous."
Manuel Canovas
Postcards From Everywhere
His designs nodded to the French eighteenth-century art de vivre in their historic decorative scenes, while drawing constantly on rare archival documents and travels to India, Japan and beyond. One of his most recognisable fabrics, depicting the fruit of the cacao tree among stylised foliage, grew out of a single trip to California. Pattern, for Canovas, was always a form of travel writing. Salvator makes the point at full volume, a black-and-white jungle toile dense with prowling leopards and lemurs, dramatic enough to carry an entire wall on its own, while Morny takes the same jungle instinct into deep teal, a canopy of trees and palms dense enough to disappear into, shown here upholstered onto the very armchair sitting in front of it.
Salvator (Papiers Peints Vol 7)
Morny (Papiers Peints Vol 7)
Not every jungle scene needs to fill a whole wall, either. Florida does a lighter, more domestic version of the same idea, potted palms against a dark sculptural console, and Salengro takes the same leaf into a warmer banana-leaf print, both content to sit at a smaller, more everyday scale.
Florida (Papiers Peints Vol 7)
Salengro (Papiers Peints Vol 7)
A Legacy in Safe Hands
Canovas retired in 1998, selling the house to The Colefax Group, the same stable behind Colefax and Fowler. He died in March 2021, aged 85, but the Manuel Canovas studio continues his vision today, producing the same bold, travel-inspired scenes and rich Parisian palette that first caused a stir over sixty years ago. His fabrics now hang in the permanent collections of London's V&A and New York's Cooper Hewitt Museum, and the house remains a favourite of tastemakers from Marc Jacobs to Luke Edward Hall.
Not every design in the archive shouts, either. Vallauris trades pattern for pure geometry, a soft pink and olive cube trellis with a graphic, almost Deco-era restraint, and Côte d'Azur is a fine, almost botanical line drawing of palms in sage, the kind of quiet repeat that suits a whole room rather than a single statement wall. Proof the house never settled into just one register.
Vallauris
Côte d'Azur
Because the scale and the colour are both so confident, the bolder designs above are made for a single feature wall rather than an entire room. Order a sample first and see how the pattern and the palette sit in your own light before committing to a roll.
For a Frenchman who never did small patterns, Manuel Canovas built something that has lasted rather well. Proof, perhaps, that big, generous motifs never really go out of style.
Ready to Make a Bold Entrance?
Browse the full Manuel Canovas collection at Wallpaper Sales, exotic scenes, archive toiles and classic florals, all in that unmistakable Parisian palette. Not sure which design and colourway will suit your room? Order a swatch first through our Sample Service before committing.
