Black Edition

Black Edition was established in 2013 as part of The Romo Group, and is the boldest of the group's six brands. Its collections are led by Emily Mould, the group's director of design and excellence and the great-great granddaughter of Romo's founder, and the house describes what it makes as rich upholstery weaves and drapery cloths in a range of qualities, from velvets and chenilles to linens and silks.

The group behind it was founded in 1902 by Robert Mould, who started a small furniture manufacturing business in Nottingham. It is still family run in its fifth generation, from Oddicroft Lane in Sutton-in-Ashfield, employs over 370 people, sells in more than seventy countries and exports about seventy per cent of what it makes. It won the Queen's Award for Enterprise for International Trade in 2017, having won it once before in 2008.

One thing worth knowing about how the cloth is made. Every original artwork is hand painted and coloured in the group's own design studio, and the weaving and printing are then done by specialist mills rather than in house. Each of the six brands keeps its own studio, which is why a Black Edition velvet and a Mark Alexander linen do not look like two colourways of one idea.

Black Edition is where we go when a room needs one piece to carry it. The palette is deeper and the textures more theatrical than the rest of the group, and a single chair in a Black Edition velvet will do more work than three quiet ones.