The Mews Fabrics & Furnishings was conceived and created by Annabel Haan, a devotee of all things bright and beautiful.
As Annabel writes on her website: “I have always loved colour and pattern on almost any object – a flower, a bowl, a sofa, beach umbrellas in the sand – and after 18 years of working in property in London’s West End, I realised I needed to fulfil my passion of dealing with the interiors rather than the exteriors of buildings.”
From gorgeous reversible cotton quilts to vibrantly-hued lampshades, and from hand-painted Spanish ceramics to a wonderful collection of printed fabrics, each item in Annabel’s thoughtfully curated collections has been chosen to add a splash of colour to an interior, whether it’s one detail in a space or part of a co-ordinated design scheme. Now living in the Scottish Borders with her family, we caught up with Annabel to ask about the inspiration behind her business and her love of colour, and also to chat more about her wonderful fabric collections.
Welcome to our blog and thanks for chatting with us Annabel. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
I’m the founder and owner of The Mews Fabrics & Furnishings, a homeware business that sells block printed fabrics, table linen and quilts, as well as cushions, ceramics, lampshades and fabric by the metre.
I was a Chartered Surveyor for a top 10 property firm for 18 years and have always had a huge interest in property and decoration; both the exterior and interiors of buildings fascinate me, particularly historical buildings and how they survive through time and get looked after for the next generation. I’ve always been interested in fabrics and design and have hoarded so many bits of vintage fabric (much to my husband’s chagrin) and so, after having the children and wanting to spend less time in an office, I turned a passion into reality.
What led you to live in this area?
I was brought up in the Borders on a beautiful farm just outside Kelso and, after 20 years in London, it felt right to return home and luckily my husband was up for the adventure as well. We also didn’t want to bring up our children in a big city as both of us had upbringings where mucking about outside, in fields, woods, on ponies and bikes, was day-to-day fun and we wanted our children to have the same.
Your fabrics and furnishings are simply beautiful – how do you decide what to select?
I stared the company by becoming the UK agent for Pigott’s Store which is a destination interiors shop in Sydney, Australia. Pigott’s is run by a family friend, Nano Sefton, who, along with her two sisters, has enviable taste and the shop is just a treasure trove of beautiful fabrics, homeware and antiques. Nano is fantastic at putting colour and pattern together and she has created a collection of block printed table linen and homeware that is unsurpassed. These items were the first things I sold. Due to the power of Instagram, Pigott’s already had quite a following in the UK and so luckily the products were popular and sold really well and continue to do so.
I branched out from there – again through the Instagram community I met a lovely Spanish lady who is an expert at table laying and she introduced me to the Spanish ceramics and the Mallorcan fabric. The ceramics just felt like a natural fit to go with our tablecloths; they are beautifully handmade and hand-painted and so the colours are amazingly vibrant.
I was extremely lucky to go to Mallorca with Gloria Glonzales (check out her interiors blog, Directorio Deco, it’s amazing!) in February 2020 and we visited the three Mallorcan fabric houses that I get our fabric from. The artisanal nature of these fabrics, as well as the colour, patterns and texture, is something that I find irresistible and again they felt like a natural fit with our other products.
It must be amazing when you see what people use your fabrics to create?
Yes, it’s always a real thrill to see what people create with our fabrics and some people are so creative!
Felicity Buchanan is a brilliant watercolourist who created, along with interior designer Nels Crosthwaite Eyre, the Pardis Fabric Collection that we sell by the metre. It’s a mixture of hand-painted floral motifs, which are so pretty, with a lot of Eastern/Indian inspiration thrown in and is such a good fit for us.
Nels has also used quite a bit of our Mallorcan fabrics in her projects – for example, on bedheads and bench seat covers; she is great at putting colours together.
Elizabeth Hay, who is an incredible interior designer in Singapore, has used a few of our Mallorcan fabrics and Pardis Fabrics and it’s a real “pinch me” moment when someone as well known as her uses them.
You have created your own Block Print collection – please tell us more about this…
During lockdown in 2020, when supplies of items were difficult and I knew it would be hard to get more items from Pigott’s Store, I managed to get hold of a fantastic block printer in India who has created a range of table linen exclusively for us; he runs a small workshop in Jaipur and his designs and the block printing skills of his team are fantastic.
There are some quite common motifs that are used for block printing and he had some unique designs that I’d not seen before; for example, the design we call Kelpie, which is a pretty seaweed-like pattern. He also had a beautiful floral block print that seemed quite French (traditional Indian block printing inspired much French chintz and chinoiserie of the 17th and 18th centuries) and this was just too pretty to resist as well (we call this one Meadow).
What does a working day look like for you?
It’s definitely a juggling act keeping the work-life balance but we seem to muddle through. I usually drop the kids at school and am at my desk just after 9; I will sort urgent emails, place any fabric orders that have come in (our Pardis collection is printed to order in the UK), and then start packing any orders received via the website. I have a fantastic person helping me now which is a huge relief as the packing sometimes takes so long I have little time for anything else. I try and fit in a dog walk (long legged lurcher and tiny terrier) at some point and just to escape for 40 mins and see the fantastic views around us is a complete tonic and also provides a lot of inspiration too.
Once the kids are back from school, it’s a jumble of teatime, homework, bath time and stories before my husband and I can relax, and invariably there are a few emails and work things to sort out before we watch a bit of telly before bed.
Where do you most enjoy escaping to when you are not working?
We’re renting a house in Makerstoun and the walks around here are incredible – it’s an area that generally looks south to the Cheviots and the house I grew up in had incredible views to the north so it’s fabulous to see a different perspective. The walks along the Tweed are beautiful too; just to be down close to this river that has been there for centuries is something I find mind-blowing…. to think what the river has seen over the years in terms of history is amazing.
Further afield, we’re big fans of Bamburgh beach, Alnwick Castle (we’ve got three big Harry Potter fans in the family), and the beaches in East Lothian. Ruberslaw is a fantastic and easy hill to climb and we love going for picnics into the Cheviots and generally take swimsuits and fishing nets for paddling in the burns.
Any local businesses you would like to highlight in your area?
The Faldonside Farmers Market is a fantastic event run by locals Pete and Posy Maitland-Carew. I’m not saying this because I was lucky enough to be a recent stallholder but because they have created the market with the community at the heart of it; they have gathered together a fantastic selection of local artisan producers and they are really championing these people. Any local producers can find it hard to get their name out there and their products seen, and Pete and Posy have quietly gone about making this wonderful market that is so accessible and so fun to be part of.
I couldn’t live without Mainstreet Trading in St Boswells – not just for the coffee but I’m a real bookworm and can’t fail to find something that I know is going to be great. It also has a fantastic kids section and so it’s actually a pleasure taking the children in there (rather than a chore like some shops as any parent can testify!).
I must mention my uncle, John Church, who is a local upholsterer near Duns – he makes wonderful footstools and dog beds and has recently done a fabulous footstool for a local customer in one of our striking Mallorcan striped fabrics.
Having grown up near it, Kelso is the town I know the best and it’s wonderful to see so many shops thriving there – old timers like Archie Hume (outfitters), Rogersons (shoes) , Hector Innes (cameras and photographs), James Stewart and Son (electricals) , Borders Cookware, Tweed House Interiors, and W.J Blair (Jewellers and they can mend any watch or piece of jewellery) as well as new ones like Hunter’s the Butchers, Treetop Toys, 20 Storey, and Fin & Game.
Also a Kelso local, Stella Lathangie is a fantastic photographer I’ve used. Stella makes a photoshoot – which I usually find quite stressful as there’s a lot of work to get through – a breeze and a pleasure, with amazing photos as the end of it.
I also love Floors Castle Garden Centre and Café – the home produce is amazing and so good to stock up on.
Douglas Home & Co do a mean set of accounts and I must do a big mention to the Post Office staff in St Boswells and Kelso who have to be the friendliest postal workers I have ever come across (and I post a lot of things!).
What’s next for The Mews?
We recently received some beautiful hand-painted pots by our wonderful makers in Spain, and we are so excited about these. They are perfect for flowers, indoors and out, and the smaller one could also double up as a vase or pen pot.
And I’m in the early stages of designing our own fabric range, to be printed in the UK – fabric is really my first love and I’ve hoarded items for years for inspiration, from wooden plaster moulds from a junk shop to many remnants of vintage fabric. So watch this space!
We know you are currently renovating a beautiful Borders property – this must be a dream come true. Can you share any insights into the vision you have for your finished home?
It really is a dream but we’ve got a long way to go until it becomes reality! It’s a lovely old farmhouse with an incredible view but we’ve had to strip it right back to its bare bones because of dry rot, so there will be a lot of love, blood, sweat, and no doubt tears thrown in.
We are creating a beautiful open plan kitchen/dining/sitting room with lots of windows to make the most of the light and views, and, although it was a bit of a sticking point with my husband, we’re creating a veranda off this space too. We’ve been on holiday to Denmark a few times and the Danes are so stylish and really know how to make the most of outside space, so we’d love a rustic style Danish veranda and in time, when the budget allows, a summer-house done in a bright yellow or orange render, which is very Danish too.
Browse the collections from The Mews Fabrics & Furnishings here and do follow them on Instagram
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