Close-up of muted ash grey velvet with a fine, softly brushed pile

Tap the swatch to see it larger. Colours on a screen are a guide, not a match, so come and feel the real cloth.

Mark Alexander

Empire Ash

Name: Empire Ash
Brand: Mark Alexander

Empire Ash is a restrained ash-grey velvet with a softly brushed surface and subtle tonal variation. In the close-up, its quiet pile catches the light without creating a visible pattern.

muted ash grey plain none smart upholstery

Ask Ruth about this fabric See it in your room

See this fabric on Mark Alexander's own site, then order it through us.

About this fabric

The colour reads as a muted, cool-to-neutral grey, softened by fine shifts across the velvet surface rather than a flat, uniform block of colour. Its close, gently textured pile gives the swatch a calm sense of depth, while the absence of a visible motif keeps the design entirely understated. As a catalogued Velvet from Mark Alexander’s Timeless Velvets collection, Empire Ash is especially suited to upholstery where its tactile surface can be appreciated at close range.

How to use it

Use Empire Ash on a tailored sofa, occasional chair or upholstered headboard in a tonal grey scheme, pairing it with pale stone, chalky whites or weathered timber to preserve its calm, cool character.

Its quiet ash-grey tone and softly brushed surface bring restrained depth to upholstered seating and headboards.

Mark Alexander Timeless Velvets Velvet

More from Timeless Velvets

The same book, other colourways.

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See the whole collection

Pairs well with

Empire Ash is a quiet cloth, so it carries a pattern beside it: one of these on the curtains and this on the chair. Mixed across the houses we hold, which is the part a single supplier's book cannot do.

Charcoal and grey checked woven fabric with fine stripe intersections

Cove Charcoal

Belvoir Collection

Grey checked woven fabric with charcoal and silver pinstripes

Cove Haze

Belvoir Collection

Rosee Du Matin Roseau

Cabanon Fabrics

Pergola Shades Crepuscule

Histoires Naturelles Fabrics

Muted olive-grey and ivory vertical stripes with a clean, closely woven surface

Sicily Outdoor Grey

Alfresco Indoor Outdoor Fabric

Cameron Ebony

Alfresco Indoor Outdoor Weaves

Pale silver-grey geometric fabric swatch with fine woven chevron and diamond pattern

Albeck Silver

Albeck

Pale silver-grey linen swatch with fine vertical botanical stripe pattern

Birch Stripe Silver

Ashmead Block Prints

Ciottoli Platinum

Boratti WALLPAPER

Brera Striato Aqua

Brera Striato Fabrics

Charcoal and gold leopard spots brushed across a pale grey ground

Felis Charcoal/Gold

Wilderie Wallpapers

St John Street Trellis Limestone

Heritage Prints

Paint that goes with it

Two ways to take the room. Both colours are from houses we hold, so a pot can come off the same order as the cloth. Screens shift colour, so treat these as a direction and bring the cloth to the shelf before you buy the paint.

To sit quietly behind it

Vineyard

Sanderson · #777976

To stand against it

Glacier Grey

Zoffany · #e1e1df

Other grey fabrics

Across the houses we hold. See all 8,056.

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Cement-grey woven fabric with a raised feather-like diagonal motif

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