Like splendour, a really important attribute in interior furnishings. It evokes much more than comfort–all textiles and furnishings should be tactile, lovely to stroke, feel sensuous, and be sumptuous. The mixture of fabrics, the trimmings, the colours, designs and weaves all contribute to sumptuous-ness.
It is enough to choose a good fabric and make it well – however elemental the materials and the work, the result will be sumptuous. Not over blown, but splendid, and expensive looking.
We have a few woollen cushions here that are essentially made in two colours with five seams each. People keep picking them up, because they are sumptuous. The fabric is simple, the making is simple, the result is something very visually pleasing that is also a pleasure to touch and to hold. It doesn’t rustle, or have a smell. It also doesn’t demand.
A sumptuous fabric must be good to look at and to touch – I don’t think we’ve ever compromised on these two criteria. What would be the point of one without the other in the place call home ? The most special place deserves the most special things.
Sumptuous doesn’t need to be expensive, but it does need to be complete – a simple hand woven hemp flour sack is good to look at and to feel,and how it’s made up must reflect the characteristics within it. A beautiful damask is the same- its doesn’t need anything added to make it sumptuous – it already is, so there’s a danger that more could very well become less.
My immediate response to the word is of comfortable seating covered with great fabrics – not necessarily of sofas and armchairs – it could just as easily be a deep wooden bench, or floor cushions in a tent, or blankets and pillows in the garden on a beach. An ottoman sofa with upholstered seat cushioned back and fat bolsters…. And it could as easily be all white or sand coloured linens as a red an gold lisere- whatever is right for the benefit of both.