Painted Garden is a British designed and made carpet plank collection. Milliken’s in-house design team took as their starting point elements of the art and nature to create a delicate imaginative result.
Creative garden displays, inspired by celebrated artists, at the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show were one of the starting points for Milliken’s latest floor plank collection ‘Painted Garden’.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Chelsea Flower Show is the most prestigious gardening show in the world. As the highlight of the horticultural calendar, RHS Chelsea, held in London, is the place to see cutting-edge garden design, breathtaking floral displays and innovative garden products, with some 168,000 visitors attending the show each year.
Held on the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London, the show features an array of gardens with themes around sustainability and the joy of gardening. Celebrated its centenary in 2013, but its origins date back to 1827.
Chelsea Flower Show is an incredible source of inspiration. Milliken designers picked up on certain elements which they incorporated into the Painted Garden collection. The careful and precise placement of yarns that Milliken’s superior tufting technology enables, along with patented printing technology Millitron®, produce complex and fascinating colour and design effects.
One very direct influence of gardening and the Chelsea Flower Show upon the Painted Garden collection can be seen in the optional overlay pattern featuring silhouette designs of seed heads and flower stems. These motifs can be layered on top of any of the tiles in the collection to create bespoke flooring designs. The outcomes can be playful or dramatic, depending on the vision of the designer and how they are utilised.
Another driver behind the development of the Painted Garden collection was a fresh appreciation of nature and gardening. During enforced time at home during the covid pandemic, many discovered the joy of gardening and appreciated the physical and psychological benefits associated with this seemingly simple activity. Long periods of time living under restrictions tending to plants and green spaces became a way to alleviate boredom, connect with nature while supporting our health and well-being.
Milliken designers observed garden designs that seemed to take a lot from painters like Monet and Cedric Morris. This led them to explore how these painters' interpreted nature and used it in their design process. Creating immersive palettes of painted landscapes, with the appearance of brushstrokes and painterly compositions. We can see intense small dashes of flower colour and planting. They observed the layering of plants and gardeners who practice a naturalistic approach to horticulture.
Monet's ambition to document the French countryside led to a method of painting the same scene many times so as to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons.
Morris went to Zennor in Cornwall, where he studied plants and painted water colours.He chose the country life to pursue his passion for horticulture.
Designed by Milliken’s in-house design team, from the Company’s base in Wigan, Painted Garden is manufactured in the UK. The 25cm by 1M tile plank format allows for masses of flexibility in designing layouts, including a striking herringbone pattern. Painted Garden has a superior cushion backing: WellBAC® Comfort Plus with luxurious underfoot comfort, sound absorption, excellent acoustic performance and designed-in ergonomic properties.
The new, highly textural, construction of Painted Garden combines high and low lustre yarns, with 100% recycled content to create a patterned backdrop that is both luxurious and deeply textural.
The Painted Garden collection is made from Econyl® yarn, which uses 100% regenerated content. As part of Milliken’s M/PACT™ Programme (a carbon-neutral initiative spearheaded by Milliken’s Flooring Business) it offers impressive Green credentials from recycled content to responsible end of life re-use. It is made from 70% recycled content by product weight and has the following third party certifications: A+, TUV, EPD, CRI and Cradle-to-cradle Silver rating. Painted Garden is certified ‘Red List Free,’ which means that the collection contains no red list chemicals.
Painted Garden was featured at Clerkenwell Design Week 2024 with floral themed series of talks, workshops and tours. To find out more read our blog : FOR THE LOVE OF COLOUR & PATTERN: CDW 2024 HIGHLIGHTS AND INSIGHTS