A ciselé cotton velvet, the wave cut into the pile, read at close range and in Gulf light.
Ask for the fabric on WhatsAppMost decorated velvets are printed, and a print sits on the surface like a photograph on paper. Bohême is not one of those. The wave is cut into the pile itself, so the drawing exists as a difference in height, not in colour. Run a hand across it in the dark and the pattern is still there. Everything on this page follows from that one structural fact, including the way the fabric is metered.
Bohême is a ciselé cotton velvet edited by Pierre Frey in Paris. Reference F3978002, colourway Quartz, is 73% cotton and 27% viscose with a 100% cotton pile, 138 cm wide, straight repeat 43 cm vertical by 34 cm horizontal, 1242 g per linear metre, Martindale 85,000 cycles. Saint Objets upholsters it on its own frames in Dubai.
The pattern is not on the fabric. It is in it.
Ciselé, from the French for chiselled.
A 43 cm vertical repeat governs where every cut can begin. The seat, the inside back, the arms and the front band each have to start at a fixed point in the pattern, and the fabric left between those starting points is not usable elsewhere on the chair. So the metreage is not a constant, it is the result of a plan drawn for the frame in front of us. We establish it, then we quote. That is the whole meaning of price on request here.
Ask for a quotationCiselé is French for chiselled, and on a velvet the word describes a fabric in which the design has been made in the pile rather than laid on top of it. Two textures share one surface. Where the loops of the pile warp have been opened, the cut yarn ends stand upright, catch the light at their tips and read dark and matte because the eye is looking down between them. Where the loops have been left closed, the surface stays low and continuous and returns the light more evenly, reading brighter. Bohême, written BOHEME on the reference card, sets its wave along the border between those two states. Nothing is printed, nothing is embossed, nothing is applied after the loom.
A velvet is really two constructions working at the same time. There is a ground, which is the fabric that holds everything together and gives it body, and there is a pile warp, a second set of yarns lifted clear of that ground to make the standing surface you touch. In pile weaving that raised warp is carried over rods, or woven face to face as a double piece and then separated, and what remains standing is the pile. A ciselé is produced when only part of that pile is opened, leaving the rest as closed loop. The consequence matters for a buyer: the drawing is structural. It cannot be adjusted, softened or re-scaled after weaving, because it is the geometry of how the yarn was raised.
Because the pattern is height rather than pigment, the fabric behaves like a very shallow relief sculpture, and relief needs a light source to exist at all. Dubai gives it three in a day. Around noon the sun is high and white, it enters a room almost vertically, the cut pile goes deep and the closed ground lifts, and the wave separates with real contrast. In the late afternoon the light comes in long and low, the shadow inside each cut stretches, and the pattern reads wider and warmer than it did four hours earlier. Under lamplight the whole surface calms down and the relief becomes something you notice mostly at the edges of the seat. This is why a photograph is a poor judge of Bohême.
Velvet also has a direction, which is called the nap. The pile lies one way, and the same piece of fabric looks lighter walked around one side of the chair and deeper from the other. On a plain velvet that produces the familiar shading. On a ciselé it does something more interesting, because the cut areas and the closed areas do not shade at the same rate, so the wave appears to gain and lose weight as you move around the piece. In the atelier the nap is established before any panel is cut, and every panel on the chair runs the same way. A single piece turned the wrong way would read as a colour fault even though the dye is identical.
The published figures for reference F3978002 are these, and only these. Composition, 73% cotton and 27% viscose, with the pile given as 100% cotton. Width, 138 cm. Weight, 1242 g per linear metre, a weight that sits in upholstery territory rather than in the lighter drapery range. Straight repeat, 43 cm vertical by 34 cm horizontal, straight meaning that the motifs align in level rows and the next panel starts at the same point across the width, with no drop. Martindale, 85,000 cycles, rated by the manufacturer for intensive upholstery. Flammability, BS 5852 cigarette and match test. We publish these because the supplier card documents them, and we publish nothing beyond them.
Read the composition line closely, because it separates two different things. The fabric overall is 73% cotton and 27% viscose. The pile, which is the only part your hand and the back of your knee ever meet, is given as 100% cotton. So the viscose is not in the surface you sit on, it belongs to the ground construction underneath. The practical result is a dry velvet rather than a liquid or lustrous one. A cotton pile takes dye deep and returns light softly, closer in feel to a very fine corduroy than to the bright sheen most people picture when they hear the word velvet. That matters on a ciselé, because a matte pile lets the relief carry the drawing instead of the shine.
Three colourways are woven: Quartz, Fluorite and Agate. The reference carries the colourway in its final digits, so Quartz is 002, Fluorite is 003 and Agate is 004, and the correct way to specify any of them is by that full number rather than by a name alone. We deliberately do not translate these into colour adjectives on a web page. A ciselé already presents itself as two tones inside one dye, since cut and closed pile return light differently, and a screen adds its own shift on top of that. The honest method is the old one: the sample is held in the studio, laid on the frame, and looked at in the room's own light before anything is ordered.
It is worth being plain about what this fabric is for and what it is not for. It is an indoor upholstery velvet, and it belongs on a piece placed out of direct sun. It is not an outdoor or poolside fabric, and we would not specify it for a terrace or for a chair that sits in an unshaded west window every afternoon. No fade rating is published for it, so we do not offer one, and we make no stain or treatment claim of any kind. Like every pile fabric it will show pressure where someone has been sitting, and it will show dust more readily than a flat weave, which is managed simply by brushing along the direction of the nap.
Seeing it settles most questions, because a photograph flattens relief and this fabric is entirely relief. A sample is held in the studio and can be seen against the frame. Two places: Decoroom at Art of Living Mall, where you can walk in and the design consultation is complimentary, and the Saint Objets studio at Dubai Design District, by appointment. The fabric is ordered from the house, the frames are our own, drawn by Sarah Koben, Founder and Creative Director, and made to order in the Emirates. Lead time is ten to thirty days, and delivery and assembly within Dubai are complimentary on orders above AED 4,000.
Written by the Saint Objets studio. Message the studio on WhatsApp or see the Pierre Frey collection.
Ciselé is French for chiselled. It describes a velvet where part of the pile has been cut open and part left as closed loop, so the design appears as a difference in surface height. On Bohême the wave is that border. The pattern is woven into the structure of the fabric, not printed on it, which is why it can be felt with a fingertip.
Woven. There is no ink and no embossing involved. The wave exists because some of the pile warp was opened and some was left closed during weaving, which produces two different surfaces on one fabric. That is also why the drawing cannot be re-scaled or corrected afterwards. It is fixed on the loom.
Martindale is an abrasion test that counts how many rubbing cycles a fabric withstands under standard conditions. Pierre Frey publishes 85,000 cycles for Bohême and rates the fabric for intensive upholstery. We report that figure exactly as the supplier card gives it, with no adjective and no comparison of our own added to it, and we publish no other performance number for this velvet.
Because every panel has to begin at the same point in the pattern. The seat, the inside back, the arms and the front band are each cut to the match, and the fabric falling between those starting points cannot be used elsewhere on the chair. The metreage therefore depends on the cutting plan, not on a fixed number, which is why L'Écrin in Bohême is price on request.
Three. Quartz, which is reference F3978002 and the one used on L'Écrin, plus Fluorite 003 and Agate 004. Always specify the full reference rather than the name alone. Because a ciselé reads as two tones within a single dye, and because screens shift colour, we ask clients to see the sample in the room rather than judge a colourway from a photograph.
It is an indoor fabric and it should be placed out of direct sunlight. Within those conditions the documented figures are strong for a chair in daily use: a dense cotton cut pile, Martindale 85,000 cycles rated for intensive upholstery, and the BS 5852 cigarette and match test. No fade rating is published, so we do not make one, and we make no stain resistance claim.
Yes, to a degree, and that is normal for any pile fabric rather than a defect. Pressure lays the pile down and the flattened area returns light differently, which reads as a lighter or darker patch. On a ciselé it is less visible than on a plain velvet, because the eye is already reading two textures. Brushing gently along the direction of the nap evens the surface again.
Yes, and we recommend it, because a photograph flattens the relief that makes this velvet what it is. A sample is held in the studio. You can walk in to Decoroom at Art of Living Mall, where the design consultation is complimentary, or come to the Dubai Design District studio by appointment. Lead time on the finished piece is ten to thirty days.