When I was first in London – some 15 years ago – I saw a picture in a magazine of an Ant-style chair with a simple but dynamic pattern printed directly onto the wood. The print was Flash by design duo Eley Kishimoto, a total classic which – as they’ve proved in the years since – looks great on pretty much everything.

The chair struck me at the time as I suppose fashion-interiors hook-ups were much less common then, and the energy of it really stood out. I have been a fan of their work ever since, to the extent that a friend of mine tried to cheat me out of a victory at boule by claiming there was an Eley Kishimoto sample sale on round the corner, just as I played the decisive end (we were in Croatia and it was after midnight, so I knew she was kidding on). Anyway, last week I had the pleasure of visiting the pair’s Brixton studio. The occasion was the launch of their own hand-printed wallpaper collection.

The collection consists of 12 of their prints, each in four colourway options. I think my favourite is probably Sun Loving Bollards, above, but it’s hard to choose. You can see all the prints here. The morning at the studio was amazing. Not only did we get to have a peer and poke about in all the different floors, each one packed with fabric samples, paper patterns, inspiring bits and bobs and Eley Kishimoto memorabilia, but we also got to watch the wallpaper being printed. On the ground floor the pair have a print studio. At the entrance were stacks and stacks of screen print blocks and Fairy Liquid bottles full of vivid colour that would eventually make it onto the paper.

When they say hand-printed they are not kidding. We watched as two workers poured colour out onto the screen print block, then shared the task of dragging the squeegee* across it to push the paint down onto the paper. After that a sort of industrial hairdryer was moved into place to dry it. Voila.

* That is the technical term – I just looked it up on Wikipedia

It was wonderful watching the wallpaper take shape via this very human process. And best of all, I got to interview Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto afterwards. I asked them about how they worked together, and whether it had been obvious from the start that they would make a good partnership. Mark described the early days in the studio, with orders coming in for Wakako’s patterns to be screen printed. It’s a process which, as you can see above, takes two to achieve. That was the point, he said, at which it became obvious what their business should be – working together to realise Wakako’s brilliant visions in pattern and colour, with Mark making it all happen around the two of them.

I loved meeting them. You can read a full interview with the pair and see lots more photos of the studio over at The Chromologist. And if anyone wonders what I might like for Christmas… there’s a hole in my current sneakers. Ta