What happens on the cutting table when a patterned fabric from Paris meets a frame built in our own atelier.
Ask for the cut planA plain velvet is cut where the panel ends. A patterned velvet is cut where the pattern allows. That single difference changes the order of the work, the quantity of fabric that leaves the roll, and the reason a price is given per piece rather than printed on a tag. What follows is the sequence on the table for BOHEME, from reading the roll to counting the metres the match demands, with no figure printed that the reference itself does not publish.
Pierre Frey upholstery in Dubai is made at Saint Objets, where the fabric is ordered from the house in Paris and cut onto our own frames. A patterned reference such as BOHEME F3978002 QUARTZ is matched panel by panel against its 43 cm repeat, so the metreage is planned before a price is quoted. Ten to thirty days.
A wave that stops at a seam is a seam. A wave that crosses it is a chair.
Sarah Koben, Founder and Creative Director, SAINT OBJETS
Send us the frame you want and the reference you want on it. We draw the plan, count the metres the match demands, and come back with the piece, the metreage and the price together. Nothing is ordered from Paris before that page exists.
Start a pieceA roll of Pierre Frey never goes straight onto a frame. It is unrolled full length on the cutting table, face up, and read end to end before anything is chalked. BOHEME is woven 138 cm wide, and after the selvedges are set aside that width is the hard constraint on how many panels can sit shoulder to shoulder across the fabric. The repeat is then checked against the fabric in front of us rather than taken on trust from the card, because a cut pile relaxes on the roll and a plan drawn on paper has to survive contact with the real material. Only then does the cut plan become a working document.
A straight repeat behaves differently from a half drop, and the difference is felt in the quantity ordered. On BOHEME the wave returns every 43 cm vertically and every 34 cm horizontally, and because the repeat is straight, the motifs in one row sit directly beside the motifs in the next row across the width rather than stepping sideways. That makes the horizontal reading of the fabric predictable, which is a gift, and it makes the vertical reading unforgiving, which is the cost. Two panels destined to meet at a seam must be lifted from the roll at exactly the same point in the wave, so the roll is marked at the repeat before it is marked at the panel.
This is where consumption rises, and it rises for a reason a buyer can check with a ruler. A panel whose finished height falls between two repeats still swallows the second repeat whole, because the following panel has to begin at the top of the wave again. The fabric left between them is not waste through carelessness, it is the structural price of a continuous pattern. On a plain velvet that same panel would be cut to its own length and nothing more. On a patterned reference that extra fabric is exactly what the metre count on the quotation records, which is why the plan is drawn before the order is placed in Paris.
Ciselé adds a second discipline on top of the repeat. The fabric carries 100% cotton pile on a ground of 73% cotton and 27% viscose, and the wave is formed by cutting into that pile, so the design lives in relief rather than in ink. Cut and uncut areas throw light differently, which means the direction of the pile is as load bearing as the direction of the pattern. Every panel on a piece is laid with the pile running the same way, without exception. Reverse one panel and the eye reads a colour change where there is none, because the same yarn returns a different depth of light depending on which way it lies.
Cutting order follows size, not convenience. The largest surfaces are taken from the roll first, the inside back, the outside back and the seat, because they are the ones a person actually looks at and they must be the ones that own the best of the pattern. The arm faces follow, cut to sit in register with the back. Smaller components come last, from what the plan has already reserved for them, never from an offcut chosen at random. A cutting order reversed is a cutting order that runs out of matched fabric exactly where the match matters most.
Seams take the strain of everything above. Where a patterned velvet crosses a joint, the two panels are matched and pinned along the whole length before the machine starts, then fed slowly, because a cut pile pushes one layer ahead of the other under the foot and a match that was perfect on the table can walk out of register in twenty centimetres. Seams carrying load are reinforced rather than simply closed. On L'Écrin the seat is sprung as standard, which means the upholstery has to accept movement under it for years without the wave shifting at the join. A pattern that has moved cannot be corrected later, so it is corrected now.
The published figures on the reference say what the fabric is built for, and we print them and nothing more. The manufacturer rates BOHEME at 85,000 Martindale cycles and describes it as suitable for intensive upholstery, and the reference records the BS 5852 cigarette and match test. Composition is 73% cotton and 27% viscose with a 100% cotton pile, width 138 cm, weight 1242 g per linear metre. That weight is felt directly on the table, a heavy fabric hangs true and resists distortion while it is being matched, which is one practical reason a dense velvet is easier to keep in register than a light one. It also decides how the roll is handled, since a fabric of that weight is carried and laid flat rather than dragged across the table, because dragging a cut pile marks it and a marked panel cannot be used where the match is seen.
Because the metreage is an outcome of the plan rather than an input to it, the edition is price on request. We do not carry a fixed figure for a patterned reference and we will not invent one, since the same frame in the same fabric can consume different quantities depending on the colourway ordered, the direction the piece is read from and how the repeat falls on the roll that arrives. What we do carry is a method. Frame plus reference plus colourway gives a cut plan, the cut plan gives a metre count, and the metre count is quoted alongside the piece so the arithmetic is visible before anything is committed.
The same craft applies when the reference is yours. If you already hold a Pierre Frey fabric, or intend to specify one, it can be placed on a Saint Objets frame as customer's own material, and the cut plan is drawn the same way against your repeat. For a piece you already own, the frame is assessed first, since there is no sense putting a matched velvet over a structure that will not hold it. BOHEME is also woven in Fluorite 003 and Agate 004, and the relief is best judged in person, at Decoroom at Art of Living Mall where you can walk in, or at the Dubai Design District studio by appointment. A photograph flattens a ciselé and always will.
Written by the Saint Objets studio. Message the studio on WhatsApp or see the Pierre Frey collection.
Because the fabric is metered piece by piece. A 43 cm vertical repeat means the quantity depends on the frame, the reference and how the pattern falls, so the atelier draws the cut plan first and then quotes the piece with the metre count attached. It is price on request so that the number you receive is the real one, not an average.
It forces every panel that meets another at a seam to start at the same point in the wave. A panel falling between two repeats still consumes the second repeat in full, and the fabric in between is the cost of the match. That is why consumption on a patterned reference is higher than on a plain velvet of the same frame.
Yes. The inside back, the seat and the arm faces are read as one surface and matched by hand before machining, panel laid on panel, the wave walked across the join until it crosses without a break. A seam that fails the match is unpicked and remade. This is the slowest part of the work and the part that decides whether the piece looks made or assembled.
Ciselé means the pattern is cut into the pile rather than printed or woven in contrasting colour. On BOHEME the wave exists as relief, cut and uncut areas catching light differently. In practice this means pile direction has to be identical on every panel, because reversing one panel makes the same fabric read as a different shade.
Yes, as customer's own material. Send the reference and the colourway, and we draw the cut plan against your repeat exactly as we would for our own edition, then confirm the quantity needed before the fabric is cut. If the piece is one you already own, the frame is assessed first, because a matched velvet is only worth putting over a structure that will hold it.
Martindale is a rub count, a laboratory measure of how many cycles of abrasion a fabric withstands. The manufacturer rates BOHEME at 85,000 cycles and describes it as suitable for intensive upholstery. The reference also records the BS 5852 cigarette and match test. Those are the published figures, and we add nothing to them.
Production runs ten to thirty days once the fabric is in the atelier. The fabric can be seen and handled at Decoroom at Art of Living Mall, where you can walk in and the design consultation is complimentary, or at the studio in Dubai Design District by appointment. A photograph flattens the relief, so we would always rather you saw it against the frame.
Delivery and assembly within Dubai are complimentary on orders above AED 4,000. The piece arrives assembled and placed, which matters on a patterned upholstery because the orientation of the wave relative to the light in the room is part of the result. Tell us where the piece will sit and we will plan the cut with that direction in mind.