2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. And while fashion designer Johnson Hartig of Libertine never needs an occasion to make what he wants, it was the perfect moment for a creative project he’s been thinking about for quite some time: an English-countryside-themed wallpaper.
Designed by Hartig and made by Schumacher, “Mr. Darcy” depicts a quaint hamlet. Look closely, and you’ll see an aristocratic estate and its manicured gardens. Just beyond is a Gothic cathedral. Smaller homes dot rolling hills, as do trees and villagers. In the background is a lake, perhaps where King Arthur’s mythical maiden resided before giving him his sword.
Johnson said he wanted the wallpaper to have a handmade feel, like one is gazing upon an original artwork from the late 18th or early 19th centuries that showed country life in Great Britain. “I've always been drawn to English history and English arts and objects,” he tells Vogue. “I just had this fantasy of doing something from a bird’s eye view of an 18th-century English village.” (Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice between 1796 and 1797.)
He looked at drawings and paintings from the time, before meticulously crafting his own design. Then, together with the artisans at Schumacher, they spent over 250 hours making his Anglo fantasy a beautiful, bucolic reality that will add charm to any home. “I can just see Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett walking across the foggy misty field and running into each other—I could see that happening in between the two houses in the wallpaper,” he says.
Right now, “Mr. Darcy” hangs in the dining room of his historic house in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hancock Park. In his bedroom is another print, which is a re-imagination of a 17th-century Flemish tapestry. Called La Fôret, it shows a rich, colorful forest where delightful objects abound: a violin leans against the tree, whereas an urn is toppled against fallen foliage. Drawn by hand, it took over 800 hours to create.
In Vogue’s annual interior design trend report, multiple interior designers said that there has been an uptick in interest around statement wallpaper. Johnson has a good guess as to why: “I think that we’re all yearning for kinder, gentler times. Wallpaper evokes emotions of grandmother's houses—no one looks at wallpaper and doesn't have some sort of emotional response,” he says. “Usually it’s kind of a cozy, warm response.”
Indeed, while Hartig’s new work for Schumacher will certainly appeal to any maximalist out there, it’s also for those who seek a different—and arguably more soulful—ambiance than the all-beige or cream interiors that have dominated design as of late. It’s the kind of chic, contrarian statement that perhaps Elizabeth Bennet herself would have been proud of.
