Choosing the fabric for a sofa usually comes down to colour and pattern, and that is the least important decision in the whole process. The more important question is: how does this fabric behave after two years of daily use, not how it looks in the first photograph.
How many Martindale you need in hospitality
Abrasion resistance is measured in Martindale, and it is the first figure worth asking about. None of the fabrics we propose for serving venues is below 40 000, and most of our range sits above 100 000. That applies both to high quality velour and to faux leather of Polish production.
The parameter itself says little without the context of use. A sofa in a restaurant with long dinners, where guests sit for an hour or two, takes a different load from seating in a pub, where someone comes and goes every half hour and brushes the edge each time they stand up. The second situation wears the fabric faster, even at roughly the same number of guests a day.
When a certificate is needed
A certificate is sometimes a condition for the venue being approved, not an extra in the offer, and it applies most often to hotels and to buildings with fire requirements. We have fabrics with various certificates, according to what customers need.
If your venue has such requirements, say so in the first conversation, before we start choosing a colour. Then we narrow down straight away to fabrics that meet them: 968 27 586.
Light or dark fabric: what it means in practice
Colour has a practical side, not only an aesthetic one. Light fabrics show stains and marks sooner than dark ones.
Dark ones in turn can be harder to use in daylight in a small room, because they optically take space away. Patterned ones hide small stains better than plain ones, which matters where cleaning happens once a day and not after every guest.
Velour or faux leather: what actually separates them
Velour and faux leather wear differently, even though both go through the same Martindale test. Faux leather you wipe with a damp cloth and move on, which is why it ends up in night venues and wherever spilt drinks are routine.
Velour gives a warmer look and does better in a café or a restaurant with longer visits. At Cafe Beluga in Bonn we went for velour precisely because a café works to a different rhythm from a club. The standard finish on the sofas is black, and for another finish we set the price individually.
Why you should ask for a sample before you decide
A sample settles what a screen cannot. Texture, thickness and the way the fabric lies on the foam you see only in direct contact.
We send the sample after a phone call, once we know how intensively the sofa will be used and in what room it will stand. That way the package holds fabrics that make sense in your venue, and not the whole range. We send within one to two working days after the call.
When we sew in material supplied by the customer
We sew in material sent to us if the architect or the client has already chosen a fabric. At Hôtel Royal Beaulaincourt in France we finished the furniture for the restaurant floor in alcantara the customer supplied.
That is the answer for design offices running an interior in one material and unwilling to leave the chosen collection.
How to describe the conditions in your venue
Describe how intensively the sofa will be used and how many hours a day it is in use. Choosing from concrete conditions is easier than picking a colour from the whole palette by feel.
Say too whether the venue has certification requirements, and whether the fabric has to match an existing interior. The rest we go through on the phone: 968 27 586.
Mariusz Wolski · owner of KAIZEN sp. z o.o. · in the furniture trade since 2005