The best outdoor fabrics and cushions for tarting up your garden furniture

Outdoor fabrics are essential for a stylish garden. Now that the summer heat has us pining after afternoons spent lounging on sun loungers, across the lawn or drinking rosé around an outdoor table, we're very much in need of some good upholstery. It might not be the first thing you think of when you think of garden furniture, but you do need outdoor cushions and you can't just bring the ones on your sofa outside, unless you're willing to constantly cart them inside and outside every time the sun shines.

Enter outdoor fabrics and outdoor cushions, which are formulated from special materials to make them weatherproof, not susceptible to fading and resistant to water damage, so you can forget about them in a shower and not have to worry. When it comes to design, the bolder and brighter the better; these fabrics have to hold their own in a sunny garden after all. Think large-scale candy stripes and vibrant floral patterns, all in cheerful colours that will tempt you outside. You could try a matchy matchy scheme, but we're all for mixing it up, and a mix of different scale patterns in the same colour family can be a fun way to go.

Below, we've found the most stylish outdoor fabrics to have turned into bespoke covers for all your cushions, as well as some off-the-peg ones to buy now and use immediately.