Chintz, from the Hindi chint meaning spotted or variegated cloth, arrived in England in the 17th century and captured the imagination of a nation. It was practical as much as it was beautiful. The highly glazed finish, originally achieved with heavy calander irons, meant that the soot from coal fires did not cling to the surface of the cloth in the way it did to cotton or linen. It was fresh, it was pretty, and it was exactly the right thing for the country house bedroom curtain or the loose covers of a morning room.
Chintz: A Living Tradition
By the 18th and 19th centuries, chintz had become woven into the fabric of English domestic life. The great jobbing houses of London, firms like Warners, Bakers, Ramm Son and Crocker, Turnbull and Stockdale, supplied the printers on one side and the decorators on the other. Their records, in some cases stretching back two hundred years, formed one of the most extraordinary archives of pattern and colour in existence. Jean Monro knew these houses well. Before the war, she had visited them as a child with her mother, choosing designs to be printed in their own colourways, some of which are still in use today.
One of Jean Monro's great discoveries has always been the linen cupboards and attic rooms of England's finest houses. In a cupboard at Arbury Hall in Warwickshire, looking for a missing pelmet for one of the bedrooms, she found a length of chintz that had not seen the light of day for decades. It was reproduced faithfully, returned to Arbury from whence it came, and printed on the same coffee stippled background as the original. It is precisely this kind of detective work, patient, scholarly and deeply felt, that has always defined Jean Monro's approach to the archive.
The chintz archive that Jean Monro built over the course of her career is drawn directly from this tradition. Many of the designs were discovered in the houses where Mrs. Monro and Jean worked together, found in attic rooms that had been closed for years, on walls that had not been seen for decades. They were brought back not as curiosities or museum pieces, but as living patterns: printed, coloured with great care, and offered to a new generation of interior designers who understood their worth.
When chintz fell sharply from fashion in the early 2000s, Jean Monro did not adapt, dilute, or quietly set the collection aside as others did. The archive was maintained in full, its integrity entirely intact, its character undimmed. It was a period that tested conviction, and conviction prevailed. The designs that felt unfashionable then are among the most sought after today, specified by the world's leading interior designers for the finest rooms in the finest houses. The reputation Jean Monro built by simply refusing to compromise has proved more enduring than any trend.
It is perhaps the most English of stories. A tradition rooted in the Industrial Revolution, carried through the great decorating houses of the 19th century, rescued from forgotten rooms and linen cupboards, maintained through the difficult years with absolute fidelity, and now offered to those who understand that some things are worth preserving exactly as they are.
