Pierre Frey Sofa, Dubai.

An armchair and a sofa are not the same problem in the same fabric. BOHEME is woven 138 cm wide, and the back of a three seater is longer than that. Velvet has a pile that lies in one direction, and a ciselé velvet has its pattern cut into that pile, so the roll cannot be turned sideways to cover the length without turning both the pile and the wave with it. The fabric therefore stays upright on every panel, the pile runs the same way throughout, and the extra length is made up with a join that is planned before anything is cut. On a sofa, the first decision is not the colourway. It is where that join falls.

The vertical repeat on reference F3978002 is 43 cm and the horizontal repeat is 34 cm. A panel is therefore cut to whole repeats rather than to its own height, so that the wave arrives at the same height on the deck, on the inside back and on the outside back. Every panel on a sofa is treated the same way, and a sofa carries far more panels than a chair does: two arms inside and out, a long inside back, an outside back, a deck, a front rail, and the face of every cushion. Multiply the rounding by that panel count and you have the honest reason a patterned sofa consumes so much more fabric than a plain one.

BOHEME is a straight repeat rather than a half drop, and on a long frame that is a real advantage. The motifs sit directly beside one another across the width, so a join can be matched exactly instead of staggered, and the whole sofa can be planned as a grid of 43 by 34 centimetre cells before the scissors come out. Our cutter lays the panels on that grid, marks the match line on each piece, and assembles the back so the wave reads as one continuous movement from arm to arm. Done properly the join disappears into the pattern. Done carelessly it shows as a step in the wave, visible from the other side of the room, and no amount of finishing hides it afterwards.

The cushions are the part of a sofa where a large repeat is most often thrown away. A seat is usually three separate cushions, often with three backs above them, and each face is its own cut. If they are taken off the roll one after another without thought, the wave restarts in a different place on each cushion and the row reads as three unrelated pieces pushed together. We set the cushion faces so the pattern continues across the row and then picks up again on the inside back above it, which means the cushion sequence is decided at the cut plan stage and the covers are numbered before they are sewn. On a modular frame the same discipline has to extend across every module, so that a corner run still reads as one fabric.

The fabric itself is a ciselé cotton velvet, 73% cotton and 27% viscose, with a 100% cotton pile. Ciselé means the design is cut into the pile rather than printed onto the surface, so the wave exists as relief. Part of the ground is left low, part stands proud, and the two catch light differently as you cross the room. One linear metre weighs 1242 grams, which is why a sofa in this fabric has a different hand and a different weight from the same frame in a lighter house velvet, and why the covers hang the way they do. A photograph flattens all of it. The fabric only explains itself when a light moves across it.

Pierre Frey publishes 85,000 Martindale cycles for this reference and rates it for intensive upholstery, and the fabric carries the BS 5852 cigarette and match test. Those published figures matter more on a sofa than on an occasional chair, because a sofa seat takes the weight of a household every evening rather than a guest twice a month. Everything else about living with it in this city is placement rather than paperwork. It is an indoor fabric, it belongs out of direct sun, and a dense cut pile is kept in order with regular light suction in the direction of the pile. We print the figures the supplier documents, and nothing beyond them.

Any frame in the Saint Objets sofa range can be specified in Pierre Frey. La Vague carries the longest uninterrupted back in the range, which is where a 43 cm wave is most exposed and where the seam has to be placed with the most care. Henri is modular, so the repeat is resolved inside each module and then across the joins between them, which is a different exercise again. Mayfair and Hôtel de Rome hold the pattern within tighter, more architectural panels where the eye reads the repeat against a straight edge. Club 89 is the compact frame, where a 43 cm wave has less distance to travel and the panel plan changes shape once more. The frame decides the plan, not the other way round.

This is why a sofa in this fabric is priced on request while our house fabrics carry a published price. The metreage cannot be assumed from a model name. It moves with the frame, the cushion layout, the colourway and the way the repeat happens to fall on that particular configuration, and a guess made in a showroom is a guess a client pays for later. The atelier draws the cut plan, counts the metres including the rounding and the matching allowance, and we quote the fabric and the making together. The metre count is written next to the figure, so nothing about the repeat is hidden inside a round number.

BOHEME is also woven in Fluorite 003 and Agate 004, and a sofa can be ordered in any of the three, one fabric throughout, or with a plain house velvet on the outside back and the ciselé kept for the faces you sit against. If you already hold a Pierre Frey reference of your own, we will work in your material on our frame, and we recover existing sofas once the frame has been assessed. Production runs ten to thirty days once the fabric reaches the atelier. Delivery and assembly within Dubai are complimentary on orders above AED 4,000. The fabric can be seen at Decoroom, Art of Living Mall, where you can walk in for a complimentary design consultation, or at the studio in Dubai Design District by appointment.

Written by the Saint Objets studio. Message the studio on WhatsApp or see the Pierre Frey collection.