Decorating with antique and exotic fabrics can make a home warm, lively, and distinctive. Within their weaves, colors, and patterns, textiles contain the story of interior decoration, and this guide delves into their history to encourage an understanding and a love of the great variety of world fabrics. Capturing some of the world"s most imaginative and unusual interiors, this sumptuous book is a rich source of ideas for using everything from old linen sheets to scraps of silk embroidery in clever and original ways. Professional decorators demonstrate the importance of including unusual textiles—the antique, ethnic, hand-painted, and rare—in designing a room as accents to the scheme or to set the theme for the whole room. The interiors featured are full of the unexpected, including carpets used as tablecloths, painted fabrics masquerading as pictures, and layer on layer of linen and lace as upholstery. This collection is a real inspiration—a fascinating read and a photographic insight into textiles.