Three local studios take wallpapers to new heights with designs that will elevate any room.
Flavor Paper
After 20 years of innovation, Brooklyn’s Flavor Paper is still busy introducing new patterns and partnerships. “A reckoning of composing comforting surroundings that induce happiness, inspire conversation and add intrigue is upon us,” says founder Jon Sherman. “The creativity required to find balance is the tipping point.” To wit: the company’s humorous toiles or transformative murals, all guaranteed to get people talking.
Merenda Wallpaper
Sarah Merenda held a degree in textile design and 25 years of experience as a wallpaper installer when she pivoted to designing ecofriendly wallpapers. “I had to use all my creativity and take some risks,” she says. Now based in New Jersey, Merenda finds her hanging experience still useful. “I understand how to change the scale of a pattern for a small space,” she notes. “Or I can create custom panels for a room with a chair rail. It looks better and there’s less waste.”
Michele Varian
On Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue, Michele Varian has a retail location filled with goods she has curated, along with her lighting, pillow and wallpaper collections. Varian comes from a fashion background, but the shift to designing objects and patterns for interiors felt very natural. “I grew up in a home from the turn of the century,” she says. “I just moved back into an older home with lots of tiny rooms, and I’m working on new patterns and designing wallpaper for it.”
