William Morris wallpaper has never really gone out of fashion. More than a century after Morris & Co. first brought the natural world into British interiors, its distinctive florals, trailing foliage and intricate botanical patterns continue to feel remarkably relevant. The secret lies not simply in their enduring beauty, but in their ability to adapt: a pattern created for the Victorian home can sit just as convincingly within a pared-back contemporary interior as it can in a period property.
A kitchen with character
Kitchens are one of the home’s principal living spaces, making them an especially appropriate place for the decorative richness of Morris wallpaper. Morris’s Arts and Crafts philosophy offered a counterpoint to an increasingly industrialised world, placing value on beauty, craftsmanship and the relationship between people and the natural environment. During the nineteenth century, kitchens underwent significant change as improvements in domestic technology and household organisation transformed the way the home was managed. Today, those ideas bring us kitchens designed around everyday living. Heritage wallpapers can soften the hard surfaces of contemporary cabinetry, bringing pattern and a sense of the organic into this functional room, a reminder that practicality and decoration need not be separate.
Give the home office a sense of permanence
Morris’s designs are particularly well suited to rooms intended for concentration, creativity and slower activities. His patterns are intricate but their repetition is ordered, creating a visual rhythm that can make a home office feel considered and calm. This is also a fitting continuation of Morris’s own intellectual world: he was not simply a wallpaper designer but a writer, designer, printer and advocate of craftsmanship, with an unusually broad view of how art and everyday life should intersect. His wallpapers drew upon plants observed in nature as well as historical sources including manuscripts, tapestries and early botanical books.
Make the bathroom your boldest room
The bathroom is one of the best places to be more adventurous with heritage pattern. Unlike a living room or bedroom, it is a relatively contained space and one that visitors are almost guaranteed to see, making it an ideal opportunity to introduce personality. Blackthorn, designed by John Henry Dearle in 1892, is a particularly effective example. Its intricate twisting branches and foliage have all the density associated with the Morris tradition, but a deep colourway such as Indigo gives it a dramatic, contemporary quality. Set against simple white sanitaryware, marble, aged brass or modern timber, the pattern becomes a deliberate contrast rather than an attempt to recreate a Victorian bathroom.
Featured wallpaper – Blackthorn in indigo
Bring heritage into the bedroom
Bedrooms offer a different opportunity: here, the enveloping quality of Morris pattern can be used to create a sense of calm and intimacy. The mistake is to assume that a heritage design necessarily requires a traditional bedroom scheme. In fact, Morris’s botanical patterns work particularly well with low-profile contemporary furniture, linen bedding, plain curtains and restrained lighting. Choose one dominant wallpaper and allow the rest of the room to remain relatively quiet, picking out one or two colours from the pattern rather than attempting to reproduce its entire palette. Morris’s designs were carefully constructed around the relationship between foreground, background and repeat; their complexity means that they can provide much of the visual interest a room needs without additional layers of decoration.
The modern Morris is about contrast
The enduring appeal of William Morris is not that his designs allow us to recreate the nineteenth century, but that they give contemporary interiors something that can be difficult to manufacture, that is a sense of history, craftsmanship and permanence. When Morris first introduced his wallpapers in the 1860s, they were considered unconventional, partly because they rejected the fashionable, highly realistic floral wallpapers of the period in favour of stylised plants drawn from British gardens and hedgerows. That instinct remains relevant to decorating today. The most successful way to decorate with heritage prints is not to surround them with more heritage, but instead to place them where their character can be appreciated against something unexpected. Pair intricate foliage with contemporary architecture, traditional pattern with modern colour, and centuries-old botanical references with furniture designed for today’s way of living.
A more considered dining room
The dining room is perhaps the most obvious place to embrace Morris’s decorative heritage, but it does not have to become formal. Recolouring these original designs in vibrant, contemporary shades creates a striking link between past and present. The intricate patterns retain all the character and craftsmanship of their heritage, while fresh, modern colour palettes give them a new energy and make them feel perfectly suited to the way we decorate today.
The hallway: a natural setting for pattern
Few rooms benefit more from wallpaper than the hallway. Often overlooked as a purely transitional space, it is actually where a home establishes its first impression, and heritage pattern can give it an immediate sense of identity. Morris himself was no stranger to ambitious decorative schemes: his wallpapers were used in artistically minded Victorian homes and even in prestigious settings including St James’s Palace. Today, however, there is no need to reproduce the layered Victorian approach of combining multiple wallpapers, borders and dado papers. Instead, use a single Morris design from skirting to ceiling and contrast it with contemporary flooring, simple joinery and modern lighting. The narrow proportions of a hallway can make a relatively intricate repeat feel especially immersive, turning what might otherwise be an overlooked passage into one of the most characterful spaces in the house.
A new generation of Morris
For a child’s bedroom, the Morris & Co. collaboration with designer Ben Pentreath offers a particularly convincing way to bring heritage pattern into a younger, more contemporary space. Pentreath revisited a selection of original Morris & Co. designs, introducing brighter, more unexpected colour combinations that retain the intricacy of the historic patterns while giving them a distinctly modern energy. The approach feels especially appropriate for children’s rooms, where colour and pattern can be used with greater freedom, it also reflects something fundamental about Morris himself. Although now synonymous with heritage, he was an innovator in his own time, challenging prevailing tastes and experimenting across wallpaper, textiles, printing and colour. Reimagining his designs in bold new palettes therefore feels less like altering the originals and more like continuing the spirit in which they were created
The contemporary living room
Morris & Co. collections extend beyond William Morris himself, bringing together the work of designers who shared his belief in the beauty of pattern, craftsmanship and the natural world. Melsetter Wallpapers were created from designs by May Morris, William’s daughter and an accomplished designer in her own right. She created intricate patterns, drawing on the language of embroidery and handcraft and these designs often contributed a more formal, structured approach to pattern, offering an alternative to the familiar trailing botanicals. Trellis designs introduce a more ordered, geometric quality which can feel particularly architectural, creating pattern definition without the softness of a floral design. It is a good reminder that the Arts and Crafts tradition was not simply about flowers and foliage, it was equally concerned with order, craftsmanship and the relationship between pattern and space, all qualities that make these designs very well suited to our homes today.
Let the Wallpaper Take Centre Stage
A great way to decorate with a Morris & Co. design is to treat it almost as a work of art. A single feature wall allows an intricate pattern to become the focal point of a room, giving the wallpaper the visual importance of an artwork rather than simply acting as a decorative backdrop. This approach works particularly well in a modern interior, where a richly detailed Morris design can provide warmth, colour and pattern against otherwise restrained architecture and furniture. For those who love Morris designs, but are cautious about committing to an entirely patterned room, it is also an effective way to wallpaper with confidence while keeping the interior distinctly contemporary.
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Above: Morris Strawberry Thief in Slate 216752
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More Morris: Discover the fabrics..
Morris & Co. x The Huntington collaboration gives the idea of heritage design a particularly compelling modern interpretation. Drawing on previously unfinished sketches by William Morris and his studio, discovered in The Huntington’s remarkable archive in California, the collection brings these lost works to life for the first time. Here historic artwork is translated into printed damasks, jacquards and embroideries, alongside highly crafted woven designs, allowing the intricacy of the original sketches to be appreciated through texture as well as pattern.
Morris Simply Wide Width Fabric takes some of Morris & Co.’s most recognisable designs, reinterpreting them in generous wide-width and sheer fabrics. A pared-back aesthetic gives familiar patterns a more contemporary expression, allowing the intricacy of the original designs to remain at the forefront.
Morris & Co. Indoor Outdoor Weaves brings the distinctive character of Morris & Co. into outdoor settings. Rich in heritage but designed for contemporary living, the collection offers a fresh way to use these iconic patterns beyond the traditional interior. From garden seating and cushions to outdoor entertaining spaces, these enduring designs create a natural connection between home and garden.