Description
There are tables you dress entirely and tables you prefer to leave breathing. The placemat belongs to the second family: it marks out each guest’s place, protects the surface and leaves the wood visible all around. This placemat purple and grey plays that card with restraint, with ranunculus flowers and their tightly layered petals printed in deep purple on a soft grey ground.
Each piece is hand block-printed on good-quality cotton, in the artisan workshops of our partners in India, where block printing has been passed down through generations. The gesture leaves its mark, those small variations from one impression to the next that tell a handmade textile apart from an industrial one. The design itself is created in France, in a spirit that is both refined and warm.
Set on bare wood, it warms the timber without hiding its grain. Over a plain white or natural tablecloth, it adds a layer of colour and structure to a setting that would otherwise stay flat. On a round table, it works just as well.
This placemat purple and grey is easy to live with. The cotton is hard-wearing and machine washable, it grows softer with use, while the grey keeps it easy to place and the purple gives it just enough depth. Washed at thirty degrees and ironed while still slightly damp, it keeps its shape season after season.
Stacked in a drawer, it comes out in seconds for an improvised meal. You can pair it with the matching Ranunculus napkins and tablecloth to compose the whole table around one motif, or leave it alone on wood for a pared-back effect.
An artisanal, hard-wearing and quietly distinctive piece of table linen, for anyone who likes to lay a table with care without ever overloading it.
