When two young entrepreneurial brothers, George Percival and James Baker, started importing Persian, Turkish and Turkoman carpets and re-exported them to France and the US in 1884, GP & J Baker was born. Gradually the brothers started producing beautiful prints and weaves, their designs influenced by George Percival’s admiration for Indian and Oriental art.
In the late 1800s GP & J Baker bought the renowned Swaisland Fabric Printing Company in south-east London, acquiring most of its printing blocks and a collection of pattern books dating back more than a century. A few years later, George Percival added 400 antique block prints from Paris’s Holzach studio, followed by a further 250 rare Indian printed cottons to their collection.
The brothers were adventurous travellers and became avid, discerning collectors of rare designs. Over the years they built up one of the largest and most diverse privately owned textile archives in the world. The textiles represent the last 100 centuries and hail from round the globe and include hand-painted Chinese wallpapers, rare 17th-century Italian and Turkish velvets, Indienne prints, Indonesian batiks, 500-year-old Peruvian textiles and Art Nouveau original paintings.
By the turn of the century, GP & J Baker was employing leading Arts & Crafts designers and its in house studio began developing designs from its extensive archive. George Percival was a passionate horticulturalist and served as President of the Iris Society, so naturalistic English garden flowers became a popular design and part of GP & J Baker’s enduring signature style.
We are extremely appreciative of artisanal craftsmanship, which in our case sometimes dates back hundreds of years
Many of GP & J Baker’s exquisite prints are still sourced and adapted from its original, 19th-century archives. Some have been in production for 50 to 100 years, each re-issue adding another layer to their considerable charm. More recently, some of these prints have been re-imagined as beautiful embroideries, woven fabrics and wallpapers.
Of course, it takes more than an exceptional archive to maintain a successful heritage brand or, indeed, to retain a Royal Warrant from HM The Queen, as GP & J Baker has done for more than 37 years. ‘We’re always challenging ourselves and innovating to maintain our individuality,’ explains Managing and Creative Director of GP & J Baker, Ann Grafton.
‘Yet while we embrace the latest technological advances, we are extremely appreciative of artisanal craftsmanship, which in our case sometimes dates back hundreds of years. For some collections we still employ the centuries old technique of hand block printing, for example. The result is the thrilling and extraordinary diversity of our GP & J Baker collections. They range from beautiful silks, classic prints, elegant linens and the exquisite GP & J Baker Signature designs, to contemporary geometrics and gorgeous cutting edge textures. The inspired colour palettes across all the collections fit perfectly into any period and any style of architecture.’
With showrooms in London’s Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour as well as in Paris, GP & J Baker’s declared philosophy is to lead the way in textile elegance, creating beautiful products to meet its global customers’ desires and offering one inspiring resource for the design community.
