Playful but sophisticated fabrics, housewares, and wallpapers designed in the Holy City
Left: Master colorists in India mix the pigments that they hand-screen-print onto fabric. Right: Nicki Rose (at left) and Cooper Collier launched Collier Rose Ink in 2015.
Local designer Cooper Collier’s résumé reads like a Who’s Who of home decor companies, including jobs with Pottery Barn, Caspari, and celebrity chef Tyler Florence’s retail kitchen shop. Though her domain was always project management, she learned a lot about design on the job, and while balancing budgets, Collier dreamed of preppy, playful textiles inspired by Lowcountry flora and fauna.
When the creative itch didn’t stop, she enrolled in graphic design classes, and then in 2015, took the plunge, launching Collier Rose Ink with her sister-in-law’s sister-in-law, Nicki Rose, a high-end interior designer based in Greenwich, Connecticut.
"Scallop," "Slim," and "Hydrangea" cotton dinner napkins ($56 for set of four)
Today, the duo’s fabrics and wallpaper are available to the trade, while dinner and cocktail napkins, as well as other home accessories, are sold at collierroseink.com and in eight East Coast stores, including Charleston’s own Open Door.
The company has also worked with clients to give new life to vintage fabrics and wallpapers and is prototyping a line of wastebaskets and toilet-paper covers using its fabrics.
The textiles are all small-batch, hand-screened in India and then sun-dried and hand-cut and -sewn into finished products. But the designers are committed to keeping them affordable and versatile. “We want to be aspirational, but not unattainable,” Collier says. “Having children has really reinforced that for me. No room should be too precious that it can’t be lived in by everybody.”
Photographs courtesy of Collier Rose Ink
