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The rise of Victorian wallpapers
Wallpaper has a long history in Britain and period wallpaper's popularity within the upper classes was, in part, due to the tradition from medieval times of hanging tapestries in rooms for warmth and to brighten the mood.
Early period wallpapers were hand-designed and hand-printed. Later, high quality wallpapers were made with manually operated presses and this made them too expensive for most people to afford. However, with the coming of the industrial revolution, the mass production of wallpapers made them available to the working classes for the first time.
Wallpaper Designer Tony Roche becomes Original Features' Wallpaper Expert
Tony Roche is a gifted wallpaper designer, Set Designer and wallpaper historian. Tony's passion for wallpaper design developed in his early days. His father was working in the decorating business and his grandfather was a professional marbler and pattern maker. He acknowledges their influence on him.
"Apart from learning by observing my father while he was working, I was quite inquisitive and used to read a lot of decorating books. I was mostly passionate with the Art Deco and Art Nouveau patterns.I wanted to learn about the older pattern techniques, and since finding information about this niche subject was very hard in my Irish hometown of Waterford, I decided to move to London."
