Brian Thompson

Chelsea Textiles was formed in 1990 to faithfully recreate antique textiles, cushions and furnishing accessories, the originals of which are becoming vanishingly scarce. Chelsea Textiles is a family firm, started by Mona Perlhagen, who moved to London from New York, where she had been a fashion buyer for Bloomingdale’s. She identified a need for perfect recreations of antique embroidered fabrics and cushions, to complement traditional interiors, and set about researching and sourcing authentic materials and the world’s best craftsmen, to produce hand-embroidered fabrics of the same quality as those of the 17th and 18th centuries. Jenny Simpson, her daughter, has worked for Chelsea Textiles since 2004 and has risen to become their main designer of fabrics, furniture and cushions. She has brought a whole new dimension to the company’s antique fabric and furniture designs, for which Chelsea Textiles has been known over the past twenty years. Her youthful eye has developed the range into items, which appeal to a whole new audience of stylish younger adults. Her modern take on traditional designs, which have always been thought of as ideally suited to period settings, updates them for contemporary apartment dwellers, without losing any of their classic style.