With every new season comes the desire to refresh our houses and gardens, and no season has this effect more than spring. The recent good weather has us wanting to transform our outdoor areas, whether they be small balconies or sizeable country gardens, so we've been on the look out for inspiration on just how to improve these spaces.
That inspiration has come in the form of stripes. Striped garden furniture is cropping up all over Instagram and TikTok, with gardeners and influencers alike re-covering their existing furniture in striped fabrics, or purchasing new garden furniture in cheerful striped colourways.
Part of the stripe's success is that it offers a versatile look, suiting multiple contexts and surroundings. As stripe connoisseur and founder of Colours of Arley, Louisa Tratalos, explains, “Surpassing trends and changing styles, using stripes outdoors has been a recurring presence from early Victorian seaside deckchairs, to Slim Aarons 1970s poolsides and the elegant Hamptons pool-house vibe today.”
She continues, "What’s moved on recently has been the colour pairings. At Colours of Arley customers are coming to us to re-cover outdoor upholstery in a lot braver bespoke combinations. Some of my favourite recent pairings have included Saffron & Pistachio and Norther Quarter & Peat. And I’ve loved seeing seeing our wide stripes being used as base cushions which are then mixed up with outdoor scatter cushions in different stripe widths and checks using the same colour pairings. This brings visual interest and fun but also keeps it looking curated and sophisticated.” (You can shop Colours of Arley fabrics here).
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We spotted the trend in the garden of content creator Lucy Williams, who opted for Rowen and Wren's Emerson garden chairs. The cheery red and white combination brings a fresh splash of colour to her garden year-round.
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Journalist and broadcaster Pandora Sykes has bought into the trend too, decorating her roof terrace with iron chairs with striped cushions. The stripes provide a calming counterbalance to the jolly mural painted by Christabel MacGreevy. Pandora's chairs are from Raj Tent Club, a garden furniture retailer known for their exciting designs and plenty of stripes. Stripes look just as at home here, on a smart roof terrace, as they do in Lucy Williams' city garden.
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At the house of a former Vogue staffer, Emma Sherlock, stripes are in abundance. To create a cohesive look, Emma opted to have all the cushions – from long seat ones for the benches to the scatter pillows for comfort – upholstered in the same apple green stripe, which is Flora Soames' ‘Plain Stripe Outdoor Emerald’ fabric. It is a wonderful choice which allows the space to both make a statement but not be incongruous with the colours of the garden and so the planting still makes the bigger impact.
