From a reference number in a Paris folder to a finished chair in your room, metered, cut to the match and made to order in the Emirates.
Ask for the cut planMost people meet a fabric like this the same way. A folder is opened, a corner of fabric is turned over, a card on the back carries a collection name, a reference number and a column of figures nobody explains. Then the folder closes and the question begins: how does this actually become a chair, here, without becoming an interior designer first. This page answers that. It is the working method of our atelier, written out, from the reference number to the cut plan to the day the piece is carried in. The first edition is L'Écrin, our club armchair on a solid wood plinth, spring seat fitted as standard, in BOHEME F3978002 Quartz.
A Pierre Frey fabric arrives as a reference number on a card. Saint Objets takes it the rest of the way. We order the reference from Paris, meter it to its repeat, cut it to the match and upholster it on our own frames, made to order in the Emirates, ten to thirty days. Price on request.
A folder shows you 138 centimetres of fabric. A chair shows you the wave.
BOHEME, F3978002, QUARTZ, on L'Écrin.
Send three lines, the collection, the reference and the colourway, with the piece you have in mind. We draw the cut plan on the frame, count the metres the repeat demands, and come back with the metreage and the price together, so nothing about the quote is mysterious. Production runs ten to thirty days once the fabric is in the atelier. Delivery and assembly within Dubai are complimentary on orders above AED 4,000. If you would rather feel the fabric first, Decoroom at Art of Living Mall is open to walk in, with a complimentary design consultation, and the Dubai Design District studio receives by appointment.
Start a specificationA Pierre Frey fabric is identified by three things, and a client who knows them can specify a piece from anywhere in the world. There is the collection, BOHEME. There is the reference, F3978002. And there is the colourway, QUARTZ, whose final digits sit at the end of the reference itself, which is why the same design is also woven as Fluorite 003 and Agate 004. That is the whole grammar. When those three lines arrive at the studio, the order can be opened without a single further question about the fabric, because width, weight, composition and rub count all belong to the reference and travel with it. A colour name on its own is not enough, a photograph is certainly not enough, and this is the first thing we teach a client who wants to specify rather than browse.
The card stapled to the back of the folder is a technical document, and it is worth learning to read. For BOHEME F3978002 it records a width of 138 cm, which is the usable face of the fabric and the number every cut plan starts from. It records the composition, 73% cotton and 27% viscose with a 100% cotton pile, which tells you the ground is a blend while the surface you touch is pure cotton. It records 1242 g per linear metre, a weight consistent with a dense upholstery velvet rather than a curtain fabric. It records Martindale 85,000 cycles, rated for intensive upholstery, and the BS 5852 cigarette and match test. Those are the printed facts. We repeat them and we add nothing to them.
The line that changes the money is the repeat: straight repeat, vertical 43 cm, horizontal 34 cm. A plain velvet can be cut almost anywhere on the roll. A patterned fabric cannot, because every panel of the chair has to pick the design up where the neighbouring panel left it. On L'Écrin that means the wave has to run true up the inside back, arrive correctly on the seat, and resolve on both arms so the eye reads one continuous movement rather than four separate pieces of fabric. Between those panels, fabric falls away. That waste is not carelessness, it is the price of a matched piece, and it is the single honest reason this edition is price on request rather than carrying a shelf price.
So the sequence runs backwards from the way most people expect. Nobody quotes first. The cutter draws the plan on the frame, panel by panel, deciding where each repeat lands, and only that plan produces a metreage. The metreage produces the price. You receive both figures together, the metres and the money, so you can see exactly what the pattern cost you and what the frame cost you. If you later change colourway from Quartz to Fluorite or Agate, we confirm that colourway's card with the house before the plan is fixed. If you change to a plain fabric, the plan is redrawn and the metreage falls.
Ciselé is worth a paragraph of its own, because it is the reason this fabric does not photograph. It means the pattern is cut into the pile, not printed onto it and not woven flat. Areas of the velvet are cut and areas are left as loops, so the design appears as a change of height and a change of the way light is caught, rather than as a change of colour. Run a hand across BOHEME and the wave is a relief under the fingers. Photograph it and most of that disappears, since a camera reduces a surface with two heights to one flat plane. This is precisely why we keep a cutting in the studio and why we ask clients to see it against the frame before deciding.
The route the fabric travels is short to describe. Pierre Frey has edited fabric in Paris since 1935 and owns Braquenié, Le Manach, Fadini Borghi, Boussac and Thorp of London. For a Saint Objets commission the fabric is ordered from the house against the cut plan, so the whole piece is drawn from a single length. It is shipped, then checked in the atelier against the card, reference and colourway confirmed before anything is cut. Production begins once the fabric is in the atelier and runs ten to thirty days. Delivery and assembly within Dubai are complimentary on orders above AED 4,000.
You do not have to take our fabric to use our atelier. Customer's own material, what the trade shortens to COM, is a normal way to work with us: you tell us the collection, the reference and the colourway you want, we return the metreage that reference requires on that frame including the allowance its repeat demands, and you place the fabric order. It is the same route for a piece you already own. An existing chair or sofa is assessed before any fabric is discussed, frame, joints, suspension and foam, because there is no sense committing an edited velvet to a carcass that will not carry it. If the frame is not worth recovering, we tell you that plainly.
Cotton velvet in this climate deserves a straight answer. BOHEME is an indoor fabric. It is a dense cut pile with a cotton face, weighing 1242 g per linear metre, and we specify it for rooms, placed out of direct sun. What is documented on the card is the construction, the weight, the Martindale figure of 85,000 cycles rated for intensive upholstery, and the BS 5852 cigarette and match test. There is no published fade rating for it and no stain claim, so we make neither. If your piece is destined for a glazed corner in full afternoon sun or a covered terrace, say so early and we will steer the specification elsewhere.
The frame under all of this is our own, and it was designed before the fabric was chosen. L'Écrin is a club armchair on a solid wood plinth, with a spring seat fitted as standard, which is what gives it its low, settled sit. It is drawn in Paris under Sarah Koben, Founder and Creative Director, and made to order in the Emirates. In plain fabric it is published at price on request in Aubergine mohair or Ivoire chenille. In BOHEME F3978002 Quartz it is the same chair with its consumption governed by a 43 cm repeat, which is the entire difference between a printed price and price on request.
Written by the Saint Objets studio. Message the studio on WhatsApp or see the Pierre Frey collection.
We do not publish a metre figure, because the honest one comes from the cut plan and not from a rule of thumb. BOHEME repeats every 43 cm vertically on a 138 cm width, so the metreage depends on how the wave is placed across the back, the seat and the two arms. The atelier draws the plan first, then the quote carries the metreage beside the price.
L'Écrin in Aubergine mohair or Ivoire chenille is price on request, because a plain fabric is cut to a known consumption. The Pierre Frey edition is not a different chair, it is the same frame in a patterned ciselé with a 43 cm repeat, and that fabric is metered piece by piece. We meter it, then quote. You receive one figure with the metreage shown.
Yes. Customer's own material is normal practice for us. Send the collection, the reference and the colourway, and the frame you want it on. We return the metreage required for that reference, including the allowance the repeat demands. You order the fabric, it is delivered to the atelier, it is checked against the card, and production runs from there in ten to thirty days.
We look at the frame first. An existing piece is assessed for its structure, its suspension and its foam before any fabric is discussed, because there is no sense in putting an edited velvet on a frame that will not hold it. If the frame is sound, we quote the recovering with the metreage. If it is not, we say so, and you can decide whether to keep it.
Martindale is a rub test. A machine abrades the fabric in circles and counts the cycles until it fails. Pierre Frey publishes 85,000 cycles for this reference and rates it for intensive upholstery. The card also records the BS 5852 cigarette and match test. Those are the figures we print, and we print nothing else.
BOHEME is an indoor fabric, a dense cut pile, 73% cotton and 27% viscose with a 100% cotton pile, 1242 g per linear metre. We place it indoors and out of direct sun, and we say plainly that we have no published fade rating or stain claim for it, so we make none. What is documented is the construction, the weight, the 85,000 Martindale and the BS 5852 test. For a sun filled terrace we would steer you to another fabric.
No. Saint Objets is a French furniture studio in Dubai, founded by Sarah Koben, Founder and Creative Director. Our pieces are designed in Paris and made to order in the Emirates. The fabric is ordered from the house for a specific commission, and the frames are our own. If you want to buy fabric by the metre alone, that is a conversation with the fabric house, not with us.
BOHEME is also woven in Fluorite 003 and Agate 004 alongside Quartz 002, and the last digits of the reference are what carry the colourway. The card figures we hold and print are the ones for Quartz, so for another colourway we confirm that card with the house before the cut plan is fixed. Say the word and we will show all three against the frame.