The Grand Tour

In his exuberant debut collection for Rubelli, Return to Arcadia, English decorator Luke Edward Hall draws on landscapes across Europe

Young man against a multi-patterned background.

Above image: Luke Edward Hall with the Lyres fabric from his capsule collection for Rubelli.

By Aliette Boshier

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For the English artist and designer Luke Edward Hall, an invitation to delve into the archives of the historic Venetian textile house Rubelli led to moments of joyful discovery. Spanning six centuries and myriad global cultures, the trove of 7,000 fabric samples—from fragile Chinese silk lotus shoes to Gio Ponti’s spotted Punteggiato velvet—is a unique source of inspiration for the makers and creators who pass through. A self-confessed “hoarder” who has amassed his own cache of antique and vintage fragments over the years, Hall found much in the archives to inspire his Rubelli debut, Return to Arcadia. The capsule collection is informed by Hall’s passion for classical antiquity and English country gardens, and bursts with pattern and color.

Three images: One on left of a textured screen in ornate room. Second of a bedroom with decorative accessories. Third is an inset of a throw pillow with graphic pattern.

Left to right: The fabrics Antinous (on screen) and Quatrefoil (on chair); a cushion in Gothic Folly; a poetic setting in Hall’s home in the Cotswalds. Photo by Miguel Flores-Vianna.

Featuring playful geometric shapes, vibrant chain motifs, and delicate stars, each began life as a series of sketches that were translated onto the loom through Rubelli’s technical wizardry. “I learned a lot during the early stages of working with Rubelli, particularly in relation to the construction of fabrics,” says Hall, whose past projects include posh slippers by Stubbs and Wootton and a collection of ebullient ceramics for porcelain maker Ginori 1735.

Designer in suit with graphic pattern holding a flower in a lovely garden. Inset image of velvet slippers with metal column details. The third image of an upholstered armchair and ottoman with same graphic fabric as suit in other image.

Clockwise from left: Hall dapperly suited in his Rousham fabric. Photo by Sophie Davidson. The designer’s emerald slippers for Scalamandré; a fauteuil and ottoman upholstered in Rousham.

This sense of handmade spontaneity is especially evident in fabrics like Rousham, an homage to the stately house and gardens in Oxfordshire, which positively teems with tulips, temples, and statuary in pistachio, pink, and sky blue. It looks lovely on sofas and suits alike—as sported by Hall at his wedding to the designer Duncan Campbell earlier this summer.

This sense of handmade spontaneity is especially evident in fabrics like rousham, an homage to the stately house and gardens in oxfordshire, which positively teems with tulips, temples, and statuary in pistachio, pink, and sky blue.

Collection of swatches is related colors.

A Rousham color moodboard in six saturated pinks from salmon to rust.

Hall’s aesthetic touch points run deep, referencing everything from a 19th-century French wallpaper remnant in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to Emilio Terry’s whimsical tapis for this collection. CEO Nicolò Favaretto Rubelli first became acquainted with Hall’s work through his designs for Ginori 1735, and felt that Hall could bring that same energy to their partnership, noting, “I immediately loved the freshness of his colors as well as his interpretation of antiquity.” The result is a fanciful yet modern take on historical forms that injects a dash of whimsy.

Rubelli is available through Natalie Mize Collective

See Luke Edward hall’s new book A Kind of Magic here.

The Grand Tour

By Aliette Boshier

This sense of handmade spontaneity is especially evident in fabrics like rousham, an homage to the stately house and gardens in oxfordshire, which positively teems with tulips, temples, and statuary in pistachio, pink, and sky blue.

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