We are drawn to old things for reasons that go far deeper than fashion. A faded pattern, a soft, tea stained colour, a design that looks lifted from a grandmother's parlour or a flea market find, carries a warmth and a reassurance that the shiny and the new simply cannot manage. It borrows the look of decades and centuries past, the archive florals, the faded documents, the patterns with a patina, and gives a room the comforting sense of having been loved and lived in for a very long time.
That is the quiet magic of vintage-inspired wallpaper: it lets even a brand new room feel as though it holds a few good memories already. Here is where the look comes from, and the designs on the site that wear it best.
"Vintage-inspired paper lets even a new room feel as though it holds a few good memories."
The Pull of the Past
The most convincing vintage papers are the ones with something real behind them. Bird Scroll in Blue & Beige, from Arts and Crafts by Galerie, catches the moment Arts and Crafts turned into Art Nouveau, with small birds perched among a scrolling damask. Palace Tapestry in Green, from Royal Court by GP & J Baker, is taken from the tapestries hanging in the Great Hall at Hampton Court, and papered around a doorway open to a garden it does something rather remarkable, turning a wall into a view. And Fuchsia in Red / Forest, from Ashdown by Colefax and Fowler, comes from one of their own long loved chintzes, redrawn for the wall at exactly the scale of the original cloth.
Bird Scroll, Blue & Beige by Galerie
Palace Tapestry, Green by GP & J Baker
Fuchsia, Red / Forest by Colefax and Fowler
Nostalgia, Endlessly in Fashion
Nostalgia has become one of the most powerful forces in decorating, a collective turning away from the cold and the clinical towards rooms that feel human, gathered and warm. Unlike the bolder, more graphic retro style, vintage tends towards the soft and the romantic, all faded colour and gentle, well worn charm. Pimpernel in Ocean, from William Morris at Home, is about as storied as a pattern gets: Morris drew it in 1876 and hung it in his own dining room at Kelmscott House, and in this pale, washed blue it has gone from grand to gentle. Chimneys in Old Blue is Palace Tapestry's companion from the same Royal Court collection and the same building, this time reading the brickwork on Hampton Court's famous chimneys rather than the tapestries inside. One collection, one palace, its walls and its roofline both.
Pimpernel, Ocean by William Morris at Home
Chimneys, Old Blue by GP & J Baker
"Vintage is comfort dressed as decoration, and comfort never goes out of style."
How and Where to Use It
Vintage designs bring warmth to the rooms we live in most. A faded floral or archive print makes a soft, romantic backdrop in a bedroom or a sitting room, while a documentary or gently distressed design lends character to a hallway or a study, as though it has hung there for years. Rotherby, a mural from Kensington Walk by Zoffany, was reimagined from a delicate chinoiserie panel, with peacocks perched on blossom branches and the colour deliberately shaded out to give it the look of something that has hung in a hall for a century. At the other end of the range, Prosperity, from Elegance by Caselio, shows that vintage need not mean faded at all: its gold palmettes on deep blue are pure nineteen twenties, and crisp with it.
Rotherby, Kensington Walk by Zoffany
Prosperity, Elegance by Caselio
It sits beautifully with antique and second hand furniture, well worn leather and a little happy imperfection, and it is a wonderful way to give a modern or newly built home a sense of soul and age. Keep the palette soft and resist the urge to make everything too perfect, because a little wear is the whole point. Look to Sanderson, Cath Kidston and Laura Ashley for vintage-inspired designs with real charm, and order a sample first to see the faded colours truly in your own light.
The newest room in the world can feel a little soulless. Vintage-inspired wallpaper is the simplest way to give it a past, and with it, a heart.
And for the purest version of the idea, Harald in Blue, from Herrgård by Boråstapeter, is not a vintage-inspired paper at all. It is a vintage one: a medium scale ornament of the late nineteenth century, taken from the company's own archive and printed in cobalt blue on a cardboard brown ground, which is the colourway it first appeared in. Nothing here has been softened for modern taste, and that is exactly why it works.
Harald, Blue by Boråstapeter
Ready to Give a Room a Past?
Browse the full Vintage-Inspired collection, or narrow it down in Floral, Retro and Country & Cottage.
