Fabric-Draped Table’s Dramatic Return

It’s been years since the fabric draped table has been fashionable. Now it’s back, quite grandly.

After decades in the corners of every room, the fabric draped tabled exited in the ‘80s along with shirred fabric on the walls and the ubiquitous apricot and green color scheme. Now, with ‘80s trends on the rebound, the draped table made a prominent appearance in the elaborate apartment of Andrew Gn, a Singapore-born clothing designer. An Elle Décor feature on Gn’s apartment showed no less than four of them in various rooms. Best known for beaded, embroidered and other entrance-making clothes, Gn’s tables also are über embellished. This is not your Grandmother’s cotton chintz skirted table with glass on top. It’s high octane French style with a Victorian feel and Asian motifs that yield ideas.

The apartment itself is layered with tons and tons of pattern, accessories on accessories and lavish displays. It’s a particular look and impossible to source or duplicate.  Most of us wouldn’t want to since it’s anything but modern. But oh, the details.

In the foyer, an Anatolian or Turkish carpet is used to drape the hall table [top]. Like Caucasian carpets from neighboring Armenia and Georgia, these carpets  are woven on wool foundations which makes them rather soft and floppy. The soft weave allows this one to drape gracefully on the floor and completely conceal the table beneath. A flat-woven kilim carpet, some American Indian blankets, and many similar textiles could be used to the same effect – to ramp up a room with wonderful color and pattern that’s literally lifted off the floor.

A room devoted to smoking (let’s not go there, ok?) has plant-leaf green walls and sapphire velvet tufted sofas both incredibly harmonious with the mellow wood parquet. Then there’s an antique table under that lipstick-red table cover — gemstone colors anyone —  a square cloth with a patterned border and fringe. Specifics aside, this table drape is basically a solid-color fabric square bordered by 5 to 6-inch patterned banding and finished with fringe. The greatest difficulty in recreating a textile similar to this one would be creating neat mitered borders.

Pedigreed trimming from early 20th century French interior design icon Madeleine Castaing (who died in 1992 at the age of 98) is a prize in any home. This drape is another square red topper for a round table in front of a window in the smoking room, keeping the style consistent yet not matching. This banding has a peacock feather motif, popular before World War I, plus bouillon fringe – the same stuff often used on sofas.

Victorian spool or bobbin-leg tables and chairs often were painted black. They suit this sitting area of the bedroom where the wall is hung with antique Chinese embroidered-silk panels. On the table is a small rather thick, fringed textile much like an important doily that serves to protect the table from the weight of the enormous decorative Majorelle vase. Function over form in this case.

(Source: elledécor)

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