While working at Mulberry, Michal Silver felt a sudden change of heart. Though she’d been in the fashion industry for 15 years, she says she realized “the potential and the passion I had was for fabrics.”
Roger Saul, the company’s founder, suggested she create a fabric collection for the lifestyle brand, and she fell in love with it. “Whenever I design, everything starts with the fabric,” she says. A meeting with Christopher Farr and Matthew Bourne, owners of rug design studio Christopher Farr followed, and in 2003, they opened Christopher Farr Cloth, with Silver spearheading the new fabrics division.
Among one of their earlier clients was Kit Kemp—who became the first designer to collaborate with the company on an original collection, and the relationship naturally grew from there. “We understood and cherished that process.,” says Silver. “She could start a sentence, and I would finish it.”
Soon after, she teamed up with Belgian weaver Thierry Van Damme—a fruitful partnership that has culminated in two collections per year since they started working together. With their combined efforts, Christopher Farr Cloth has made a name for itself in printing on fine linen. “It’s so organic and natural, and the way it absorbs colors works for us,” Silver says, adding that patterns are illuminated and exalted on the seemingly weightless fabric.
Silver’s creative vision is the underlying theme throughout all of their products. “Art is part of our DNA,” she says. “Our collections have a point of view.” Products have made their way into Soho House, Four Seasons, and Indigo properties, to name a few. Their next range launches in January and continues the relationship with Kemp and Van Damme with a colorful, hefty embroidered feel to a series of four to five weaves. As “I always say to Kit, ‘I am here to make your dreams come true.’”
Photography by Simon Brown
