Colour, texture and a weaver’s understanding of cloth give this South African textile company its distinctive place in contemporary int eriors.

A blanket can change a room with surprisingly little effort. Spread across a bed, its pattern becomes part of the architecture; folded over a chair, it introduces a smaller rhythm of colour. Table linen brings softness to timber and ceramics. In a bathroom, a towel can provide the only pattern the space needs.

These are modest interventions, but they influence how a home feels. Mungo’s textiles reward that kind of attention. Look closely and there is more to consider than the palette: raised surfaces, intersecting threads, a naturally finished edge. Much of their character comes from the way the cloth is woven.

For designer Lenore Schroeder, construction is a starting point. In a published interview about Mungo’s Folly towel, she explains that the weave establishes practical qualities such as absorbency and durability. Designs are drawn on graph paper, samples are taken home, and colour is considered in relation to the structure. Appearance develops alongside the experience of using the fabric.

The Vrou-Vrou blanket makes this relationship particularly clear. Its enlarged checks have an immediate graphic presence, but Schroeder’s interest lay in what happened where the colours crossed. Combined with a three-dimensional honeycomb weave, those intersections produced blocks of tone and texture. Fold the blanket differently and another part of the composition comes forward. 

In an interior, that gives one object considerable range. Across a plain bed, the generous pattern can establish the room’s palette. Over the arm of a sofa, a smaller section introduces colour without occupying the whole space. It would sit comfortably beside a simple timber chair, where the contrast between smooth wood and textured cloth gives both materials greater definition.

There is a quieter register to Mungo, too. The Lisburn table runner combines a linen warp with a cotton weft and retains an exposed selvedge: the naturally finished edge created on a shuttle loom. It is a small detail, but an expressive one. On a table with handmade pottery, the cloth’s texture and edge offer enough interest to keep the setting informal.

Creative director Tessa Holding has described a design approach that develops independently of seasonal colour forecasts. Inspiration, available yarns and the existing collection all play a part. That allows restrained pieces and bolder experiments to coexist. For a home assembled over time, this breadth is useful: a new textile can find a relationship with furniture and objects already there. 

Mungo’s roots help explain its fluency with materials. Founder Stuart Holding grew up in Yorkshire and trained at Wenning Silk Mills before travelling and settling in South Africa. In 1978, he and his wife Janet, a potter, became tenants at the old shop in Plettenberg Bay’s Old Nick Village. Weaving and ceramics developed side by side, placing cloth within the wider world of useful, handmade objects.

The earlier Old Nick Fabrics shop occupied what is now Mungo’s flagship store. Mungo itself dates its founding to 1998, when Stuart began producing small runs of homeware textiles on two restored antique looms. His children, Dax and Tessa, later helped develop the business and its visual identity. Today, the design story also belongs to Schroeder and the weavers, inspectors, cutters and seamstresses who translate ideas into finished cloth.

Historic weaving references remain part of that work. Schroeder’s Skipping Block cushions draw on Halvdräll, a Scandinavian weaving technique in which threads float across the surface to create texture. Reworked in playful colour combinations, the resulting pattern has a lively, contemporary character. It is a useful reminder that Mungo’s South African identity accommodates influences gathered from elsewhere.

The company continues to explore what its cloth can do. For Cape Town Furniture Week in February 2026, Mungo presented Miro, an upholstery fabric developed for a collaboration with James Mudge Furniture Studio. Schroeder used a traditional overshot weave, combining cotton, wool, mohair and silk. Jade, grey and sage provide the muted base; the different fibres contribute structure, warmth and a subtle sheen.

Presented on Mudge’s wooden furniture, Miro puts the relationship between textile and form into focus. The cloth follows the furniture’s lines while giving its surfaces a different depth. Woven on modern machinery, it also shows how new equipment can extend the possibilities of an established technique.

Visitors can see that conversation between old and new at Mungo’s mill in Old Nick Village. Opened in 2017, the building was conceived by Stuart and Dax with architect Andrea Christoforetti. Its wooden exterior echoes threads and folds of fabric, while the working interior allows the public to follow production. The architecture gives a visible home to processes usually encountered only through the finished object.

That connection carries wider significance in a country that has lost weaving and spinning capacity. Mungo maintains local production and the skills it requires. Its stated commitment to longevity is accompanied by GOTS certification for its mill, achieved in 2020, and MOVE, a community programme to which it allocates one percent of annual turnover. Twyg recognised the company with its Retail Award that year.

For the home, though, the encounter remains direct. A hand runs across a woven surface. A blanket is unfolded, a table laid, a towel hung against a tiled wall. Mungo’s appeal begins in these ordinary moments, when colour and construction become something lived with—and a room gains character through the cloth we choose.