Natural, organic materials make a beautiful backdrop

Designsource director Sue Holmes can look around her showroom and point to beautiful, handcrafted products from most corners of the globe.

After 30 years in business, she has contacts in places as far-flung as Nepal and The Philippines, as well as the United States and Europe.

"A lot of our products are crafted by artisans, so they really are artworks as much as anything else. Our whole vibe is natural products, mainly natural stones—limestone, granite, travertines, basalt—which are used mainly for paving and wall cladding. We also specialise in beautiful, handmade textured wall coverings and luxury leathers for upholstery."

Sue says she finds architects, interior designers and homeowners increasingly looking towards natural and organic materials.

"There is more understanding of organic materials coming out of the ground. It's a matter of educating people that a mark’s not a crack, but a vein or a beautiful and rare fossil, not a fault. They need to understand that these materials come from the ground; limestone, for example, carries sedimentary markers from the Jurassic period, and the veins and holes in basalt were formed as the lava cooled and solidified.

“It's equally important to set expectations that not one piece of stone is the same as another and that when you live with natural materials as old as these, you need to respect them, love them and care for them.”

Designsource finds its stone in all corners of Europe—from Italy, France, Portugal, Greece and Spain. Sue says one of the lovely things about natural stone is that once people put a product like limestone in their bathroom, they never need to change it. "The stone is timeless; it can stay forever. Change your fixtures, but keep the beautiful stone—it gets better as it ages."

The various stones can be used for interior and exterior floors and walls. Sue says she sees people increasingly flowing products from outside and into interior spaces, with rugs to soften them.

A new and popular product Designsource has recently discovered is recycled brick slips from Serbia. These bricks, more elongated and skinnier than the local equivalent—and in lovely, soft terracotta tones—often come from old houses that have been demolished. A Kiwi living in Serbia has developed a cottage industry slicing them down to make brick slips perfect for walls and floors.

Sue has also found a similar grey brick that comes from old houses in China. “They are a beautiful, soft shade of grey, very muted and ideal for a floor or feature wall.”

Another rather interesting find is quartzite stone from Greece: "It makes very cool crazy paving for that retro modernist look, which is very in at the moment,” says Sue.

The tiny imperfections in the handcrafted wallpapers that Designsource imports from the USA and Europe are what make them unique and individual. "Often, you can see the colour variations, and joins between drops are visible. These products are all handcrafted, so details like these are part of their charm,” says Sue.

One particularly niche product that Sue has come across on her travels worldwide is Lokta paper from Nepal. Using the fibre from the Nepal Paper Plant, Lokta paper is handmade and formed into rectangular pieces using traditional methods. A small business in the United States then imports the paper from Nepal and a tiny group of artists working from home finish it with lacquers in rich dark colours to make a unique, textured wallpaper.

Another artisanal wallpaper, Abaca, is made by local workers in small villages in The Philippines, using fibre from the banana tree. Designsource also supplies other wallpapers made from natural products such as cork, bark and raffia.

“We are especially excited about a new range that we have just discovered in Milan, Italy, from a company called La Scala Milano. These papers are all handmade using various media such as pigment pastes and natural clays, applied with tools like sponges, paintbrushes and spatulas. The papers have rich textures, with contemporary lineal and woven designs, often with gold or other metallic finishes,” says Sue.

“It’s the amazing textures and handcrafted qualities that really set these papers apart. They are fantastic as a feature wall or a whole room in a private home or in restaurants and bars. Use them for impact in a study or a powder room—they will create a lush and rich space,” she says.

This enthusiasm for hunting out small, niche and sustainable local businesses has always been a feature of Designsource. One find Sue especially loves was at a weaving school attached to a hotel where she was staying in the southern part of The Philippines.

The weavers took copper cord, flattened it and wove it, and Sue saw the potential and began importing it for bar fronts, detailing on reception desks and even specified it as a very luxurious wall finish for a superyacht.

“Picking up products like these can make a huge difference to a local economy. Often I am dealing with the artisan directly and they get such a buzz when I send photos of where their products have ended up.”

Learn more about the natural products imported by Designsource.