PARIS—Osborne & Little belongs to “the high end editeur’s club but we manage to offer cheaper prices than our competitors, say for instance Pierre Frey, because we source some of our fabrics in China, while maintaining suppliers in Belgium, Italy and India for embroideries,” says Yannick Mayer, O&L Sales Manager in France. Mayer was interviewed by F&FI during Deco Off, the French fabric show with 90 participants. Osborne & Little chose the basement of trendy Bel Ami the left bank hotel, to entertain customers and press with champagne and canapés on the occasion of its 50th anniversary during Deco Off. Nearly all of the 2018 exhibitors showed new collections in their permanent showrooms, concentrated mainly on two neighborhoods on both banks of the Seine River, rue du Mail and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Mayer says that wallpaper sales now account for about a third of sales in France. “Two thirds still come from fabrics, whose volume is declining, mainly because younger consumers are less interested in using fabrics for decoration. Chinese companies we work with are carefully supervised.”  Mayer and her British bosses were reluctant to publicly acknowledge the Chinese sources “because it is not generally considered glamorous and we do not want to communicate that image to the public,” she says. The Italian Riviera and the art history of Italy inspire the spring collection featured during Deco Off, with colorful printed, embroidered and woven fabrics, as well as coordinating wallpapers. Osborne & Little also partners with British Designer Matthew Williamson, whose new collection is released in the fall and was not highlighted during Deco Off. The French fashion designer Alain Lalou, with years of experience and successful sales in international markets, said that the found the Osborne & Little spring collection as interesting as many other collections shown in the Deco Off showrooms. But, he said, “It lacks innovation, missing the high-tech revolution in fabrics which could attract new consumers”. He added that he understood  “it is not easy and it will take time for established editeurs to move from pure tradition and classics and challenge their customers with bold new products’. Osborne & Little distributes Designers Guild in the U.S., whose Spring collection, shown in their Right Bank rue du Mail showroom, explores the influence of muses on artists, adding new designs to its library of over 5,000 plain and tailored textures. Osborne & Little was founded in 1968 by Peter Osborne and Antony Little. Little has since left the company and now lives in South Africa.  Osborne & Little used to have its own permanent showroom in Paris, slightly off   Place Furstenberg and its surrounding area where some of the leading editeurs keep their flagship stores in Paris. Osborne & Little used to be there before, but the British parent company decided to close its French subsidiary after the September 2001 crisis to manage the French market from the U.K. and subsequently shut down its Furstenberg showroom to anticipate the Brexit consequences. Management then moved the flagship store to the small boutique of Manuel Canovas the designer of the Lorca collection for Osborne & Little) Deco Off organizers claim a total of 37,000 visitors during the last week in January, simultaneously held with Maison & Objet, the decoration exhibition at Villepinte, a remote suburban area near Charles de Gaulle airport.