Interior designer Ken Fulk brings magic to everything he creates. So, team the American creative with French label Pierre Frey, and you can be assured of incredible results. That’s just the case with ‘The Cult of Beauty’, a surrealism-inspired collection of fabrics, wallpaper and rugs designed by Fulk for the established design house.
The collaboration plays with a mix of eras and cultures, exploring neoclassical and brutalist architecture, gardens and landscapes, canine portraits and illusionist works. Pierre Frey, one of founder Pierre’s three grandsons, who now run the empire with their father Patrick, says: “We can define the collection as a collage of colours, textures and fantasy, a tribute to the new golden age of decoration.”
It was a “spontaneous collaboration”, according to Frey, who first met the San Francisco-based Fulk in 2008. Then, the Frenchman was taken by the “fantastical environment” Fulk had created in his home office, complete with enormous tropical plants, stuffed animals, sculptures and – perhaps most strikingly – a bathtub in the middle of the room.
Such fanciful ideas can be seen throughout the Fulk x Frey collection. Part of the catalogue, Surrealist Ball (fabric and wallpaper) and Surrealist Banquet (panoramic wallpaper), both set at California’s Hotel Del Monte, are a nod to Fulk’s renowned party-planning expertise. The former, a monochrome line drawing, depicts party guests in dreamy disguises, while the banquet setting invites you to dive right in. Don’t mind if I do.
