Wealden Times | WT226 | March 2021 | Interiors supplement inside

Interiors Supplement sponsored by
5 minutes with...
Jane Cowdry
We learn about Jane’s work at her company, LilyMatthews, which produces curtains,
blinds and soft furnishings for designers and private and commercial clients
What kind of projects do you do?
The bulk of our work is for designers
but we also help private clients in the
South East. We work on full commercial
projects such as hotels and restaurants as
well as residential homes and holiday homes. Large
projects are a speciality as we have the capacity to
work on wide width curtains with lengths as much
as 7m. We also love smaller individual projects
local to us that we can turn around quickly and
ensure clients can get on with their lives in a
finished home or bedroom as soon as possible.
Can you advise on other aspects of interior
design? We help with upholstery, paint
and fabric supply. We can supply beautiful
headboards and pelmets, too. We also help with
all the fittings such as good quality basic poles
to handcrafted ones in bespoke colours. We
also supply automation for easy opening and
closing of curtains including voice control.
How are you liaising with clients during
the current pandemic? This has been difficult
but like every company we have adapted. Our
work for designers has continued fairly normally
as there is very little face-to-face with this work
and properties are often empty. We are also
able to quote from floor plans and elevations in
the early stages so no site visits are necessary.
We have strict guidelines for measuring up
and are keeping appointments to no more than
twice a week as this allows for testing in between.
We aren’t carrying out consultations in homes
but are able to meet with existing clients at the
workshop showroom at weekends when no
staff are present and we can keep a distance.
We can then put together fabric suggestions
so we can get the ball rolling and these can be
shown via Powerpoint or, if very local, with mini
moodboards or packs delivered to the door.
How can you help a client decide on the
right fabrics for their home? When I first see
a client (under normal circumstances) it would
be in their home. This often isn’t to their taste as
they will have just moved in, so I have to work
out what they like, what they want to achieve
and what makes them happy. I then ask them to
look at a few books – which is the quickest way
to see what they love, hate or what they might
consider once we have pulled it all together.
The interior of your home should bring you
joy and comfort, a haven from what is going on
outside and the fabrics and colours all contribute
to that and form the backdrop to your home life.
They aren’t just the accessory. Last year we fitted
a couple of rooms in the home of a family who
had relocated from London. Though they loved
the new house the lady was missing her London
life and office. I found a lovely fun fabric ‘Berkeley
Square’ by James Hare (pictured as background) and
we used it in the playroom, she said it made her
smile every time she went into the room because
the Square had been around the corner from her
office and where she would sit on a sunny day
with her lunch. When you see how design can
transform a house to a home it is wonderful and
our designer clients are amazing at what they do.
What is the most elaborate and memorable
project you’ve been asked to work on?
There have been so many wonderful ones and we
have worked for famous faces and famous places
along the way, but two spring to mind. One of
our designer’s clients had always loved the film
Gone with the Wind and wanted a bedroom like
Scarlett’s (if you look it up it’s swathes of peach/
pink satin). It was in a Kent manor house and the
designer brought it up to date by using a soft grey
satin, but it was fantastic with swags and tails and
swooping tiebacks and trims. The second was more
restrained but involved a sizeable Tudor hall that
was transformed by the designer into a stunning
seating and dining area with huge windows where
we made curtains over 5m long in a printed-toorder
Linwood fabric. They looked amazing and,
more importantly for us, the fit was spot on!
Tell us about your Beginners Curtain Making
Kits... Gosh this was a bit of fun during the first
lockdown! We have intermittently run curtain
making courses but they have become more
difficult as we have grown busier and also the
pandemic meant they couldn’t go ahead. I had
the idea to put the teaching into a kit so it was all
together. There is a DVD, written instructions,
fabrics, a pencil, tape and it even has pins and
needles and cotton so you only need your own
scissors and a tape measure. Of course you couldn’t
have professionals in last year so my poor husband
had to shoot the video. Though the continuity is
a bit jumpy (my hair does some odd things!), the
instructions are clear and easy to follow and it’s
taught in exactly the same way as I would on a
face-to-face course. You make a small pencil pleat
curtain and then I show you how to easily scale that
up for your own home. It’s a fraction of the cost
of the courses and you can go at your own speed.
lilymatthews.co.uk