March 2026
March arrived at Inchyra in the best possible way - I don't think I remember the daffodils being more glorious. Great masses of them across the gardens, coming up year after year since they were planted by the family in the 1950s, and never better than this year.
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London Design Week
March arrived for the industry with real positivity in the air. Design Week in Chelsea had a quality of genuine excitement. Designers were talking about upcoming projects with enthusiasm, showrooms felt alive.
For us at LineUp, it translated into the busiest week the showroom has ever had. Watching designers arrive - increasingly treating our little treasure trove of a showroom as a necessary stop - was deeply encouraging. It's what we work towards, and was wonderful to see.
We spent much of the week with our showroom brands, talking them through what's coming: later this spring, LineUp moves to a new ground-floor space at World's End Studios. Twice the size and with a street entrance that makes us properly accessible to anyone passing through this corner of Chelsea. We open on 1st June, and we'll be welcoming new partners into the space. It's an exciting new chapter!
One evening was spent in the company of fellow textile creatives at the Pimlico showroom of Fermoie — a Threads gathering (below). These events for textile creators were the brainchild of Alex of Mahala and they are such a tonic: a chance for people to come together, compare notes, and remember that there is a whole community of us out there.
Between the showroom and the studio, I did manage one glorious evening to myself. A lucky last-minute ticket to Sadler's Wells to see the Scottish Ballet's Mary Queen of Scots — and what a production. Beautifully choreographed, the staging quite remarkable. It has since crossed the Atlantic for a short run - well done if you caught it.
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Italian Escape
And then we escaped entirely: a long weekend in Bologna and Ravenna - cities I had never visited before, let alone explored in such depth. The mosaics of Ravenna will stay with me in the way that only the most extraordinary things do. We were fortunate enough to be guided by James Hill - a guide of some renown - and the days we spent moving through these two cities were an implosion on the senses, a deep immersion in decoration, pattern and colour. Below, a few of the many things that caught my eye.
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New Designs
Back in the studio the new collection is coming together really well and is very nearly signed off - after which the launch runs begin. It will be called Labeaume - like our Balazuc and Jaujac collections named after a village in the Ardèche, a part of France we know well and return to in our minds often, long since we were last there in person. Four new linen designs, a wallpaper, and new additions to our passementerie collection. It launches in September: now there is decorating with the new designs and a photoshoot ahead of us, and with it all the particular pleasure of seeing a collection move from paper and fabric swatches into something real.
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I am writing this from our cottage on the west coast of Scotland - the Escape Pod as we call it - where we are happily holed up with all the children. Outside, Storm Dave is doing its very worst. Inside, there is a fire, and games, and a great deal of laughter. A perfect way to end the month.
Much love
