Carver 57 (via Yacht and Ship Photography)
Posted: 23 June, 2010 Filed under: Companies | Tags: faux leather Leave a comment »Some nice yacht images on this blog
via Yacht and Ship Photography
KOTHEA 2010 Fabric Collections
Posted: 14 June, 2010 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Stuff We're Doing, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: contemporary fabric, contract fabric, contract fabrics, curtain fabric, cushion fabric, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, fake leather, faux leather, faux leather upholstery, interior design, mohair velvet, mohair velvets, natural linens, textured upholstery fabric, upholstery fabric, upholstry fabric, velvet 1 Comment »
Finally! Our summer collections have been decided and we will begin to introduce the new designs and colourways throughout the remainder of this year. We have been inundated with new work in the first part of this year causing our blog posts to be curtailed and our ‘spring’ collection to nearly be an autumn/fall collection. Not that we really do seasonal collections in any case.
I will return later in another post to KOTHEA’s quite remarkable sales figures for the financial year just finished. Most surprising, especially considering we are in the midst of a recession. We had our best ever year and by quite a large margin.
We expect some coverage of the new collections in World of Interiors and Elle decoration but, again, more on that at another time.
Where can you see our collections? Well, we are as elusive as ever but we are starting to digitize some images to our flickr feed (click the images on the right or here). The flickr update is ongoing, there is information on flickr now but some of the images are not final and some images do not have full associated descriptions / product details but we are woking on that this week. Our usual clients will receive the new collections in due course starting in late summer; if you need them more urgently for pressing projects of course we will be happy to oblige. Please get in contact in the usual way.
Not all are in production yet but most sampling is available now.
As a very broad summary we have:
1. New colours of several existing ranges including faux leather;
2. More velvets including patterned and crush;
3. Striped, double width linens;
4. Upholstery weight linen; and
5. A few more interesting one-off designs in limited colourways like the one heading up this blog post.
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Faux Leather Skin – Heavy Contract Upholstery Walling
Posted: 13 December, 2009 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Panelling & Wallcovering, Press Releases, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: contract fabric, contract fabrics, fake leather, faux leather, faux leather upholstery, interior design, textured upholstery fabric, upholstery fabric, upholstry fabric 1 Comment »LONDON, England. 07-DECEMBER-2009 11.30 AM: KOTHEA today announced it has expanded its extensive contract faux skin collections by the addition of KOFAUXLEATHER. KOFAUXLEATHER is a high durability, faux leather: a superb contract fabric with a very high Martindale result. It simply and effortlessly delivers longstanding elegance in all the right bars, hotels and marine environments both as upholstery and as a wall or door covering. It looks great.
KOFAUXLEATHER
Reference: 04-003-378
Colour Shown: Marle
Other colourways: 18
Width: 140cm
Repeat: none
Composition: 100% Cotton basecloth, 94% vinyl 6% polyester coat.
Martindale: 100,000++
Primary Usage: Heavy contract upholstery and walling.
Type of fabric: Faux Leather / Faux Skin
About KOTHEA.
KOTHEA are a Read the rest of this entry »
Martindale Rub For Faux Leather
Posted: 28 May, 2009 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Product Comments, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: fake leather, faux leather, faux leather upholstery 1 Comment »We were recently asked for the Martindale Rub For Faux Leather. Our particular Faux Leather (from our wider collectetion of faux furs) has a rub test result of over 100,000 making it suitable for heavy contract and domestic usage.
Lighten Faux Fur With Hydrogen Peroxide
Posted: 8 May, 2009 Filed under: Product Comments | Tags: fake leather, faux fur, faux leather, hydrogen peroxide bleached linen Leave a comment »We were asked: “Can you lighten a faux fur with hydrogen peroxide”.
You can guess the answer: try it out on a sample first or on piece you won’t see. However to be honest I don’t think it would work on most faux furs.
Hydrogen peroxide is a relatively weak bleach. Typically it is used on natural materials like human hair or linen. Faux furs or fake furs are normally synthetic.
It depends on what exactly the faux fur is made out of, this could be a variety of compounds. It might work on one or two compunds but I doubt it will have much of an effect on most.
Faux Leather For Flooring
Posted: 8 May, 2009 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Product Comments, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: fake leather, faux leather, faux leather upholstery Leave a comment »KOTHEA was asked if Faux Leather could be used as flooring. We have experience of putting faux leather just about on any surface: in yachts, in hotels, in villas, on doors, on walls, on bars and of course on furniture. But sadly no experience with floors.
Some of the faux leathers/faux skins we sell have a Martindale / Rub test of over 100,000. This is suitable for HEAVY/CONTRACT upholstery. However to extrapolate that to even light use flooring is risky. The rub test mimics more the action of sitting rather than being walked upon. The forces exerted by walking, running and carrying things on faux leather would be much more than in seating areas. This would be further complicated by the adhesive which would have to be both perfectly bonded throughout the entire area in contact with the floor (possible) and the adhesive would have to be strong (possible).
Having said that I have a sneaky feeling that it is possible in reasonably low traffic areas. After all it is possible to buy leather tiles. Perhaps also the covering applied after laying can improve stability and durability. If you would like me to give a more definitive response on this issue please leave a comment.
PR April 2009
Posted: 3 April, 2009 Filed under: Press Releases | Tags: contemporary fabric, contract fabric, contract fabrics, cotton, curtain fabric, domestic fabric, domestic fabrics, fake leather, faux leather, upholstry fabric Leave a comment »KOTHEA Release New Fabric For Interiors
LONDON, England. 06-APR-2009 11.30 AM: KOTHEA today announced it has expanded its product range by the addition of KOCOSMIC. KOCOSMIC is a little bit quirky; like a faux skin without trying too hard to mimic nature. It has high rubs and is suitable for a wide range of uses including heavy upholstery and wall treatments in either domestic or contract installations.
KOCOSMIC
Reference: 03-004-378
Colour Shown: 3 Silver
Other Colourways: 19
Width: 140cm
Repeat: None
Composition: 100% Cotton base cloth, 95% Vinyl 5%, Polyurethane outer.
Martindale: BS5690 100,000
Primary Usage: Heavy upholstery, wall treatments, contract & domestic.
Type of fabric: Vinyl
Other: Passes BS5852 Schedule 4 Part 1 Cigarette Test, Schedule 5 Part 1 Match Test and Crib 5.
About KOTHEA.
KOTHEA are a top-market fabric house based in London serving customers throughout all of Europe and The Middle East. Founded in 1999 they have since continued to develop and sell an extensive range of timeless fabrics to the top architects, interior- and yacht-designers for projects ranging from mega-yachts to boutique hotels and from luxury spas to penthouses.
KOTHEA operate on a trade-only basis and their fabrics are available to the public through interior designers and specialist interior design shops such as Gotham, Interiors Bis and Fiona Campbell. KOTHEA also supply beautiful hand-woven linen fabrics and finished goods – throws and table linen.
KOTHEA’s trade customers would perceive their signature fabrics to include several ranges of velvet including the exclusive ‘cashmere silk velvet’, silks, linens, double-width sheers, faux leather and interesting weaves for upholstery often with high Martindale ‘rub tests’ making them highly suited to both contract and residential projects.
Founder and Executive Director, Lisa Parsons started KOTHEA more than 10 years ago after 11 highly successful years with Nobilis Fontan in Chelsea and Donghia in Chelsea Harbour. She says, “At KOTHEA we like to think we bring something a little different to the market. Our difference will be reflected in our customers’ eyes by unusual fabrics that complement our core fabric ranges; all augmented by our excellent levels of customers service, market knowledge and attention to detail.”
# # #
For Further Information
Please visit the company web site at http://www.kothea.com
Trademarks
KOTHEA is a registered trade mark of KOTHEA Limited. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Faux Leather on doors and walls
Posted: 19 January, 2009 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Product Comments, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: fake leather, faux leather, faux leather upholstery Leave a comment »KOTHEA had two recent projects where we had to adhere Faux Leather vertically. This poses a more serious challenge than paper-based wall coverings due to both the weight of the fabric (nearly 1kg per linear metre) and the wear and tear when adhered to a door. Both installations were more involved than domestic ones as we had to consider firstly the use on a yacht in a marine environment and secondly the high levels of usage of a hotel.
So the adhesive needs to be strong.
A further set of issues to overcome are related to how the fabric might react to any chemicals in the adhesive. In both instances our fabric had a 100% cotton back coat with a vinyl mix visible layer. Superfically a conclusion could be drawn that most adhesives would be OK with the surfaces they are fastening to in these instances ie a natural wooden door and inert stone wall combined with the natural cotton back cloth. However the adhesive will almost certainly penetrate the back cloth. Becuase of this the use of a solvent based adhesive, such as Asceton, is most definately not recommended.
So the adhesive needs to be strong and water based.
After performing suitability tests in these instances we chose to use Mapei’s Adheselix VS45 . VS45 is an acrylic adhesive in water dispersion and has been used extensively by Mapei’s customers for PVC/foam wallcoverings and rubber flooring. An alternative of Adesilex G19 was also suggested for areas with more moisture but that was not necessary in these cases.
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Faux Leather Upholstery
Posted: 12 January, 2009 Filed under: Contract Fabric, Environmental, Product Comments, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: fake leather, faux animal skin, faux leather, faux leather upholstery, leather 1 Comment »Faux (or fake) Leather offers a great alterantive to leather. With Martindale rubs of over 100,000 this is a very safe choice for high use contract areas. It’s usually made of a pure cotton basecloth with a poly-cotton visible coating. There are many other animal skins that are mimiced in the same way and in many cases the finishes are convincing.
But why not just use leather?
Much leather production has now moved away from the West to areas with less stringent environmental laws and lower wage rates. This is where the problem lies.
Chromium based compounds are used in the tanning and curing process of real leather. They are thought to be carcinogenic as, in some European tanning factories, cancer rates were found to be up to 50% higher in workers than in the population as a whole. Furthermore there were higher incidences of Leukemia in children living in areas near the tanneries. Environmental problems are exacerbated by the siting of factories next to rivers; the significant amounts of discharge that are produced are fed into the water courses and then dispersed over wide areas. In more lowly regulated economies it is not unreasonable to believe that the situation is probably worse.
Moving towards a better leather requires that chromium use is stopped completely and that the water used in production is cleaned and re-used in the factory. Any tanins and dyes uses would preferably be plant based.
Food for thought: If you wear leather clothing on sweaty skin then chromium residues in the leather can rub off and enter the skin.
BS7176 BS5852 Crib 5 - A Guide
More Black Faux Leather Upholstery
Posted: 4 December, 2012 | Author: Verity du Sautoy | Filed under: Contract Fabric, Domestic Fabric, home decor, interior, interior design, interior designer, interiordesign, interiors, modern homes, Re-Blogs, Upholstery, Upholstery Fabric | Tags: Artificial leather, black faux leather upholstery, faux leather, Leather and Fur, Textiles and Nonwovens, Upholstery | 4 Comments »Faux Leather is great for upholstery. Here is a time lapse video of the full process if you want to know how it is done. We would be happy to point you to a local upholsterer but please remember that we only sell the faux leather upholstery fabric. If you would like samples please drop us an email request <here> (trade only). We have several collections of faux leather in most colourways including base colours (black, brown, green, blue, red, yellow, gold) muted neutrals and metallic finishes.
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