Bloomcraft Fabrics, a New York-based producer of woven textiles that collaborated with artists ranging from Rockwell Kent to Gloria Vanderbilt, released the Picasso Collection in 1963. As announced by an advertisement in American Fabrics: “This unusual collection links the work of the world’s greatest living painter and the world of interior design through a series...

The Bamileke people are the dominant group inhabiting the southern part of the Cameroon Grasslands, where raffia, oil palms, and banana trees are plentiful. The Bamileke are organized into chiefdoms, each headed by an absolute ruler, or fon. The fon has an eight-member advisory council made up of descendants of the kingdom’s founders. Traditionally, he...

Among Sir Paul Smith’s upholstery fabrics for Maharam, the dominant motifs are bolder and quirkier versions of classic menswear patterns such as stripes, plaid, herringbone, and houndstooth check. In a significant departure, the designer has based his latest on an iconic architectural feature. Named for the central London street address of the flagship Paul Smith...