Fabric and care

The fabrics, and what each one does

Velvet is the largest part of the range and the most misunderstood. It is a woven pile: short fibers standing upright, which is why it changes tone as you walk past it. It is durable and it crushes, and both of those are the same property.

Plush and faux fur are longer pile on a knitted base, softer to the hand and much more prone to matting where a back rests against them. Corduroy is velvet's hard-wearing cousin, with the pile cut into ribs that hide wear rather than showing it. Chenille is caterpillar yarn woven flat: soft, and the least likely of the four to show a mark.

Cotton and linen are the flat weaves, and they are the ones to buy for a room that gets used hard by children or animals. Microfiber sits between the two families — a tight synthetic weave that sheds liquid for long enough to get a cloth to it.

Washing

Cold water, gentle cycle, on its own or with things of a similar weight. Zip the cover shut before it goes in, because an open zipper is the thing that snags and pulls a pile in a drum. Wash a pair together so both come out the same.

Do not tumble dry velvet, plush or faux fur. Heat is what permanently flattens a pile, and a hot drum does in forty minutes what four years of use would not. Air dry flat, out of direct sun, and put the cover back over the insert while it is very slightly damp — it pulls the corners taut as it finishes drying and saves the ironing.

Never iron the face of a pile fabric. If a cover needs it, iron the reverse on a low setting with the pile face down on a towel.

Reviving a crushed pile

A velvet cushion that has been sat against develops a flattened patch, and it looks permanent. It usually is not. Steam lifts pile: hold a steamer or a kettle six inches away, let the fibers take up the moisture, and brush them upright with a soft clothes brush while they are damp. The patch comes back in one pass more often than not.

Faux fur mats rather than crushes, and the fix is different. Work a wide-tooth comb through the pile in short strokes from the base of the fiber outwards, the way you would untangle hair. Do it dry, and do it before the mat has been sat on for a month.

Covers with no filling

Seventeen pieces in this catalog are covers only. There is nothing inside them when they arrive, and they are made that way on purpose — they are for people who already own inserts and want to change a room without buying the same foam twice.

Twenty-nine others arrive filled and ready to use. Every product page says which of the two it is. If you are buying a cover, measure the insert you already own before ordering rather than the cushion's finished look, because a cover that fits a smaller insert hangs empty at the corners.

Cast, woven and glazed pieces

Polyresin is dusted with a dry cloth and, when that is not enough, wiped with a barely damp one and dried straight away. Do not soak a cast piece and do not use a solvent cleaner on it: the finish is applied over the casting rather than through it, and a solvent takes the finish off a raised edge first, which is exactly where the eye goes.

Woven paper straw and rattan want a dry brush and nothing else. Water swells the fiber and leaves a tide line when it dries. Stoneware and melamine pieces wipe clean, and one item in the range is dishwasher safe — its own product page says so, and the absence of that line elsewhere means the answer is no.

Glass is cleaned off the frame, not on it. Spray the cloth rather than the glass, so nothing runs down behind the glazing and sits against the print.