01252 850060
Chelsea Artisans Soft Furnishings, was founded in the mid 1980s, then in May 2006, Rebecca & Paola two of the original furnishers took over the business and have never looked back.
Growing the business and creating a bespoke soft furnishing company that boasts many services
and can undertake not only private commissions, trade projects but also works in conjunction with interior designers.
Over the last 10 years we have specialized predominately in working with designers & architects.
However, we also wanted to offer our expert knowledge & share our love for fabrics to everyone, therefore growing our business and branching out to offer our professional services direct to the public & private individual clients
A relaxed meeting can always be arranged at our workshops based in Crondall, Farnham, Surrey, where we can discuss fabric choice, design ideas and also talk you through our full making-up-service which includes a full site survey, suppling of fabrics and of course the final dressed fitting.
We are also the proud owners of a 6m length table, so we really can supply those beautiful dramatic longer length curtains for those special windows.
No job is too big but also importantly, no job is too small!
Having passed my GCSE Textiles at school, my passion has always been in creating things whether its clothing, accessories or soft furnishings. I then progressed into studying Fashion at Reading College, whist receiving work experience with a Bridal maker. I then went into working in Bridal full time, making wedding & Bridesmaids dresses. I loved this time of my life as I got involved in exhibitions and even a bit of modelling!!
As we have all experienced in life, there did come a time I felt I needed a change and to broaden my knowledge and experiences in a different avenue. This is where soft furnishings came in, it was so different to what I was used to, for one everything was so much bigger!! This is where I met Rebecca and we both worked for the original “CASF”.
The challenging aspects of the job like Swags & Tails, I have always been drawn to as the skills there are like dressmaking where patterns need to be produced from the start.
The trade is changing constantly, and it’s also important to have the projects that are different, keeping the passion alive.
Paola
Rebecca
I joined the original “CASF” after finishing at Farnham Art College, it was supposed to be a summer job but I enjoyed it so much that I stayed. Because of my enthusiasm, I learnt quickly and moved through the ranks leading to becoming Workroom Manageress. For several years, I was responsible for booking all work into our workroom diary, cutting, allocating work to colleagues and overseeing finished soft furnishings.
I met Paola through the original “CASF” and worked together for several years until our former boss decided to retire and approached both of us with the idea of taking over the business along with all trade accounts.
This came as a fabulous opportunity for both of us.
This then lead to learning different aspects of the job, such as undertaking site measures, estimating which included quantifying fabrics and as well as costs. This was all challenging as we were also still making all the soft furnishings at the same time to get our business up and running.
We have now been in business for 11 years, and Paola and myself complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses and I have thoroughly enjoyed working alongside her and look forward to the future.