Clutches of foxgloves, climbing hydrangeas, cascading arrangements of roses and ribbons, a trellis adorned with buds on the cusp of bloom . . . Jean Monro chintzes are unerringly romantic, even before they’ve been accessorised with the frills and flounces that might get added in the make-up of loose covers or curtains. They’re versatile, too, equally at home in town or country, cottage or palace (the company has a royal warrant). They can be seen on a sofa at Blenheim’s Gothic Revival Lodge, fronting cupboards in Matilda Goad’s larder, on Katharine Howard’s bed as the headboard and valance, and transforming Martin Brudnizki’s bedroom into a floral wonderland, akin to Titania’s bank “where the wild thyme blows” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the same time, “I believe it is a thoroughly modern chintz,” says Martin, of the foxglove-strewn ‘Lustmore.’
It is that timelessness – the patterns, in fact, date to the 18th and 19th centuries – coupled with their immediate allure, that places them in the pantheon of greats. And yet the name Jean Monro is not as widely known as, say, Colefax & Fowler, or GP&J Baker, even though Jean was one of the most influential interior designers of the 20th century. Interiors, by their nature, are ephemeral - but those exquisite chintzes are still in production, and in their existence is what some might term a love story.
It begins with decorating. In 1926, Jean’s mother Geraldine (one of the rose and ribbon patterns, dating from 1880, is named for her) set up the firm that would become Mrs. Monro. Jean was 10 years old at the time and recounts, in her autobiography 11 Montpelier Street: Memoirs of An Interior Decorator, spending happy days in the workshop, surrounded by upholstery and mocked up scaled windows which would be appropriately dressed and pelmet-ed. By the 1930s Geraldine had moved to premises across from Harrods (the address of Jean’s autobiography) and was being assisted by nieces of both the Duke of Marlborough and the Earl of Leicester – which was reflective of, and in turn reflected in, the grandeur of the houses she worked on. In 1946, after the war, Jean joined her mother Geraldine – and, under Mrs. Monro, took on several important residential commissions in England, as well as Jamaica, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United States. The style was unequivocally English country house, “it is so easy to live with,” writes Jean – and so naturally involved chintz.
The term ‘chintz’ describes a pattern – often floral – printed on cotton or cotton-blend fabrics. It arrived in Europe from India in the 17th century and was immediately so popular that, in the 18th century, a prolonged partial ban was imposed to stem the obsession. It was only lifted when the English textile industry worked out how to make their own – which continued, mostly uninterrupted, for centuries. English chintzes, often glazed which improved their durability and gave them a lustrous look, became renowned as being some of the best in the world. Over the years, both Geraldine and Jean, who loved them, collected them: “old curtains, loose covers and remnants, some from the linen cupboards of our customers and some from the two great textile firms of Warner and GP&J Baker,” recounts Jean. It was a worthy pursuit - for during the Second World War, England’s textile mills were turned over to uniforms, parachutes and other military supplies, and by the time rationing ended, the world had changed. Looking around in the 1970s, Jean noticed “very few handblock printers were left.”
Of the belief that “it is vitally important in this changing and disruptive world to keep as much as possible of our heritage alive,” Jean decided to form a separate company to print and market her own textile designs. These were to be based on originals no longer available, using the collection she and her mother had amassed, as well as designs from Chatsworth, and, for instance, “a document by the Alsatian flower painter Tournier, circa 1860, purchased from the private collection of a retired antique dealer in Boston.” Often, further research was done she with archivists, the V&A, and the Musee d’Arts Decoratifs in Paris to research the origins of the patterns. And occasionally, alterations were made – a scale altered, a smaller grouping of flowers inserted between larger bouquets – for the purposes of aesthetics.
All were made in English mills, and by the time Jean wrote her biography (it was published in 1988) Jean Monro Ltd was producing more than thirty different screen prints and two handblocks. “I long to do more [blockprinting] but with only one firm printing them it is not really possible,” she explains – describing it as “a hard and heavy job . . . it demands enormous patience and skill,” and revealing that a single printer couldn’t print more than 50 metres per week. There was, then, a two year-plus waiting list for ‘Rose & Fern’; the pattern, featuring roses, lilac and ferns on a blue background, requires 85 applications of the blocks for each repeat. ‘Lily & Auricula’, which has groups of the flowers encircled by loosely defined leaves, requires 96 applications per repeat. Fortunately, as Jean points out, “modern technology has improved screenprinting to such a degree that it is difficult even for the experts to tell the difference.”
The whole endeavour delighted Jean, “how satisfying it is to be able to reproduce a chintz first printed in the 18th or 19th century for a great house and to make it available to the public today,” she writes. Some might argue that there ought to have been a caveat around the word ‘available.’ Jean Monro Ltd was exclusively aimed at trade, as “we did not want private customers popping in all the time.” They’re also “top end of the market. . . I am unashamedly anxious to preserve the best.”
On Jean’s retirement in 1998, Turnell & Gigon took up the reins of the textile business, and the ethos: Jean Monro Ltd is one the only companies still to be editing handblocks. Using Jean’s original archive, and blocks made in England, they have added seven more patterns to the range, including the large scale ‘Hollyhock’ of Matilda Goad’s larder. The cottons are still glazed, “I love it,” says Katharine Howard – who lives with ‘Kingsberry’, with its sprays of briar roses and blackberries – and she remarks on how well the patterns work “with other printed textiles” and the charms of the “slight imperfections that come from the process.” And they’re still strictly only available to trade (another reason to work with an interior designer!) – though occasionally lengths can be found on eBay, or from Haines Collection. Jules Haines cites ‘Radclyffe Stripe’ as her favourite, with its columns of maidenhair fern and dianthus. “Continuity matters very much to me,” writes Jean. How lovely it is to have it via these sweepingly romantic arrangements of foxgloves and hydrangea, and roses and ribbons – and what possibilities these fabrics offer.
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