Inspiring Global Interiors - 12 Chic Ways To Creatively Display Your Textile Collection

Your cupboards and shelves are groaning with the weight of all the sumptuous global textiles you’ve collected on your Gypsy travels. And frankly - you're planning more travels and more textiles.
What is a girl to do?

Wherever you’ve been and whatever you’ve hoarded - maybe Chinese and Moroccan wedding blankets, or hand-embroidered Guatemalan huipiles, some colorful frazadas or hmong batiks - really the list of countries to visit and bohemian textiles to buy is endless. Now how to get the most out of your amazing collection of textiles?

Obviously I’m a huge textile to pillow proponent and will happily turn any bohemian textile into a boho pillow, I have the pillow shop to back up my claim... and feed my textile hoarder disorder.
But there are so many more ways to decorate with our globally inspired textiles.
And one of the best ways is to treat these artisan textiles like the art pieces they really are.  

1. FRAMED ARTISAN TEXTILES

I’m going to start with the most obvious (and expensive) way to display global textiles on the wall. When deciding on framing we have to look at a few basics.

Firstly, textiles weigh more that a piece of paper. So the frame needs to be solid.
Secondly, many textiles are considerably thicker than paper, so the frame needs to accommodate this. Hence I do not recommend buying an IKEA frame and expecting this to accommodate your one-of-a-kind textile, unless it’s a silk scarf, then your ok.

Let’s be honest - your boho textile needs to see a professional. 
Framer that is!

Below are some fabulous examples of framed textile artwork.

2. TEXTILES HUNG BY IKEA 
Now this is a cheap and cheerful solution... and involves a much coveted trip to IKEA. The second best part of this method (after the IKEA trip) is that a girl can regularly swap out her textiles after each holiday market forage with the next brightest and best thing. I recommend buying both the black and white IKEA curtain rods and matching bull clip rings - for the girl that likes variety. Bang a couple of hefty nails into the studs in your walls and you're ready to rock those bohemian wall vibes. 

3. TEXTILES MOUNTED ON CARPET STRIPS
So this one I learnt from Steve at the Wax Jambu boutique in Bangalow. He was telling me when he was buying my Peruvian frazadas that at one stage his entire upper wall was hung with carpet strips. He would be able to display all his textile by just pushing them onto the string of tiny nails. By the time I came along the carpet strips had come down for high shelves... but I could hear the regret in Steve’s voice.

Wherever you want your textiles to hang, simply attach lengths of carpet strip to the wall and push the textile onto the tiny nails. The weight is distributed evenly and no damage is sustained.

4. THE IN-LINE DISPLAY
This one is used a lot in retail spaces. Take note because the merchandisers know what they’re doing. They went to UNI and learned the most tempting ways to display products. This is a life lesson that frankly should be taught in all public schools... and yet is not🤷‍♀️

It’s very basic, but very beautiful. And the effect is heightened when there are multiple textiles... meaning there is even less reason to hold back at the markets.

5. THE CURATORS CHOICE
This is a method apparently favored by many museum conservators. A strip of Velcro is hand-sewn to the top back of the textile or rug. The soft, fuzzy Velcro part goes on the weaving; then the stiffer, matching Velcro strip is stapled or glued to a wooden board. 

The wood is either mounted on the wall wherever studs are located or has a wire attached and hung off a hook. The textile is simply pressed into place on the board.

6. SIMPLY STRUNG - CURTAIN RODS
This is the most common method used in Guatemala to display the amazing huipiles. It makes sense since a huipil is a blouse to just pop it over a hanger and hang it on the wall. Although a curtain rod is probably going to look better. The San Mateo huipil is one of the most effective wall hanging huipiles.

7. THE DRAPED LOOK - HOOKED
This look is perfect for the half dozen frazadas you just had to have while market shopping in Cusco. Simply arrange 2 or more towel hooks in a row on your wall and drape those frazadas over them for instant color and texture.

8.  TEXTILE MOUNTED HEAD BOARD
Ok this one I just saw on Pinterest from Urban Outfitters but I fell in love with it immediately. Do you have too many small moroccan rugs? Or a special one you simply can’t bear the kids and dogs to run all over? Is it packed away somewhere safe but invisible? Now you can get that rug out and on display. Buy or make a wooden frame to fit your rug, lay the textile on the frame and bang in a hundred tacks in a row on all sides. Hang above your bed. Reading this, it doesn’t sound much. But cast your eyes down at the examples below.

9. METALLIC ART AND TEXTILE DISPLAY
This is for the more advanced textile wall art connoisseur. Again Pinterest led me to this idea. Small textiles, while perfect for the intrepid traveller sometimes don’t give off huge wall art statement. But mix and match them with beautiful metal shapes in a row and voila. You have just upped your textile wall art game a few notches.

10. DISPLAY LADDERS
So this is often used in retail spaces to show a variety of purchase worthy textiles. But this doesn’t mean the same idea doesn’t look fantastic in your home. Have an empty space in your foyer? Or a corner that needs sprucing up? Check out craigslist for an old wooden ladder and either paint it or leave it natural… once you’ve draped your textile collection over it you’ll have an instant pop of color and you can now walk by and gloat at all your amazing market purchases.

11. TEXTILES MOUNTED ON A BACK BOARD
Attaching your textile to a light piece of plywood, stained or painted a pretty color is a great way to display your textile as mounted... without costing the earth. Hide the entire back board for the 'floating textile' look, or show the pretty perimeter off as an alternate to a formal frame. 

12. BASKET COLLECTION COLLAGE
Many of us are not only textile and pottery addicts, we can also confidently add baskets to our addict list. And a wall art collection is not complete until we have a few of our exotic hand woven goodies displayed in a flattering array across one or more walls.

If you have any questions or comments about this blog I'd love to hear them. Please contact me here or message me on my Instagram page.

 THE END! 

 Photo Credits:

Framed 01: pxhere.com Framed 02: Bloglovin.com Framed 03: StFrank.com Framed 04: Habbomon.info Ikea 01: LamourArtisans.com Ikea 02: Etsy / iheartnorwegianwood Carpet Strip 01: trendesignbook.com Carpet Strip 02: Inspiringhome.net Carpet Strip 03: Curiousique.com Carpet Strip 04: Bruceshah.com InLine Display 01: Bmitsolutions.net InLine Display 02: Sightunseen.com InLine Display 03: Rock-cafe.info Curators Choice 01: Urbanoutfitters.com Curators Choice 02: Curators Choice 03: Hutomo Abrianto on Unsplash Simply Strung 01: whateveryoulove

Draped Look 01: Pinterest.es/oldbrandnew Draped Look 02: Hommemaker.com Draped Look 03: - Draped Look 04: Pinterest.com.au/wearepampa Head Board 01: Lamour.com Head Board 02: Etsy / livenUPdesign Head Board 03: Urbanoutfitters.com Metalic Art 01: Designtherapy.ro Display Ladders 01: Sageandclareblog.com Display Ladders 02: - Back Board 01: Orlova Maria on Unsplash Back Board 02: Pinterest.com/kclidesignllc Back Board 03: Pinterest.com/houseandgarden Basket Collection 01: Pinterest.com/roomadnesscom Basket Collection 02: Howne-blog.com Basket Collection 03: Pinterest.com.au/trendesignbook