Introducing The Grasscloth Collection: Deus ex Gardenia x Fiona de Lys

We’re excited to announce the launch of our sensuous new Grasscloth Collection, designed in collaboration with colour consultant, Fiona de Lys.

The collection features a carefully curated palette of six colours, designed to pair harmoniously with our wallpapers and bring a natural sophistication to your home. Here, we sit down with Fiona to discuss how her unique approach helped unearth a range of timeless yet elegantly modern colours.

We’re sitting in a small cafe in North London trying to catch the right light. On the oak table is a towering stack of colour cards, coffee and a sprawling selection of our wallpapers. It’s cloudy outside and Fiona’s holding up an elegant square of grey against the miniature Orchids in our Resplendent Woods paper, but she’s not happy. The light isn’t right. 

We get up and move around to the table behind us. “That’s better. Now you can see the soft, muted shades of blue with hints of lavender in the petals”, she says, and holding the colour card against it, “how this accentuates them without overwhelming”. We agree with a hint of surprise. 

See the Grasscloth Wallpaper in French Grey

There didn’t seem to be a noticeable difference in light between the tables, but over the course of moving back and forth for the next hour, we understand a little more about how Fiona perceives the minutest shifts in colour, space and light. And I realise that perhaps our simple request, to create a foundational colour palette for our 38 wallpapers, wasn’t quite that simple at all. 

Irresistible Grasscloth 

Deus wallpapers, meticulously researched and crafted by Katya are designed to wrap you in nature and connect you with the outdoors. With our roots in high-fashion, we're always looking for ways to bring a touch of what we like to call ‘botanical glamour’ into people's homes. And what could be a more understated luxury statement, more glamorous, sensuous, than grasscloth. It brings a tactile experience that adds organic texture, depth and visual interest to walls and is a natural extension of our exploration and celebration of nature. 

"It's asking people to actually come and engage with it, to come and touch it, to feel it, to look at it really closely. It's something that is engaging people," Fiona said when we told her about our idea for the collection. And with her extensive background in identifying the ways people relate to colour both consciously and unconsciously through Aesthetic Narratives and personal colour bias, Fiona was the perfect person to help us develop colours for the collection that would complement and enhance the botanical elements in our wallpapers.

The Deus ex Gardenia grasscloth collection features a carefully curated palette of six colours, divided into warm and cool tones. "Originally you wanted five colours," Fiona says as she lays the colours in pairs on the table, "but really we need six. It’s essential that we include a complex neutral - a complex white - as it supports interiors in an understated, flexible and reliable way, allowing design in the foreground to be dominant.”

See the Grasscloth Wallpaper in Treetop Green

To create the palette Fiona immersed herself in the world of Deus ex Gardenia, spending countless hours poring over every wallpaper design, exploring how they could be woven together. "It was several, several, several hours of looking at every single wallpaper design in different light conditions and room aspects and literally uncoding all the colours that were in there and then working out where those colours were cross-pollinating," she explains.

The result is a stunning palette of six colours, divided into two sets of warm and cool hues, each with a light, medium, and mid-dark colour. This carefully curated range provides flexibility, but more importantly supports our wallpapers without dominating the design, allowing the grasscloth to seamlessly integrate with the existing Deus ex Gardenia collection. "It enables people to end up having several options per warm and cool because, you know, you can take the mid shade and lighten it, and you can take the mid deep and darken it," Fiona elaborates.

The clouds lift a little and the early afternoon sunshine catches the flowing Sisal fibres in the grasscloth. As we shuffle pairs of grasscloth and wallpapers around, each combination evokes a distinct mood and direction. And as we explore more pairings, it becomes clear that the Grasscloth Collection isn’t just about individual colours, but about the harmonious interplay between them and the wallpapers they accompany; each combination telling a unique story and setting the scene for an atmospheric experience.

See the Grasscloth Wallpaper in Complex White

"That's the beauty of this collection," Fiona muses, running her fingers over the textured surface of the grasscloth. "It's not about following trends or rules. It's about creating spaces that feel authentic, that resonate with your personal style and evoke the emotions you want to feel in your home."

We couldn’t agree more and we can’t wait to see the spaces people create with the collection. 

Explore the full Grasscloth Collection

About Fiona de Lys

Fiona de Lys is a colour consultant whose ethos is to transform rooms into atmospheric havens through personal dialogue in one’s home, in what she calls Aesthetic Narratives®. Her unique approach blends a wealth of experience and a sensitive reading of light and colour, with a sympathetic approach, in creating colour harmonies that align interiors with experience. Featured in House and Garden, Fiona has also presented on Homeworthy, the Colour Clinic for Edward Bulmer Natural Paint and speaks at independent events.