Mark Alexander

Mark Alexander is the quietest of The Romo Group's six brands and the one most committed to natural fibre. The house lists cashmere, mohair, silk, couture-quality lambswool and linen, and says of its own design that it is not opulent or fussy, nor led by transient fashion, but true to the materials it is made from. The colours are drawn from nature and from traditional pigments, which is why a Mark Alexander plain sits beside old furniture without arguing with it.

The wallcoverings are the part people do not expect. They are made from grasscloth, Japanese paper and plant fibres, using printed grasscloth, stitched paper, handwoven abaca and applied botanical fibres, so the wall has a texture you can see across a room rather than a printed impression of one.

It is a division of The Romo Group, which was founded in 1902 by Robert Mould in Nottingham and is still family run in its fifth generation from Sutton-in-Ashfield. Mark Alexander keeps an entirely separate team of in-house designers from Romo's, and the group's practice is to hand paint and colour every artwork in its own studio and then have specialist mills weave and print it.

It is also the group brand with the most to offer contract work: it publishes dedicated contract collections and a contract print service, and the group states that its brands meet international fire retardant regulations. It names no specific standard on any page, so we read the certificate off the book before anything goes into a public room rather than assuming one.

The range runs to decorative patterns, plains, textured weaves, velvets and sheers, with an outdoor cloth in the Veranda collections and a trimming collection called Accent.