Soon after commencing their business enterprise, the partners of ROBERTSON MEAD were honoured to receive a chance visit by the great David Hicks, design "democratiser" par excellence. After an interesting chat, Mr Hicks requested samples for his London showroom and eventually wrote a charming letter from London.

David Hicks' visit was at about the same time the partners received an award from the London magazine World of Interiors, in a competition for dressing up a "floor to ceiling 18th century window". They used a selection of their own fabrics and borders printed in black and white as part of a chinoiserie decor, and have since cherished the handwritten note by the magazine's then editor Ms Minn Hogg, informing them of their success.

As the company's reputation grew, the partners began to print some of their work in Switzerland as well as their local Sydney handprint. Apart from the usual conventional orders, they received a few unusual ones!

From Chicago came a request to supply a blue and white toile, seen in Sydney's Vogue Living magazine, to line the interior of two or three limousines for the wife of the president of the client's Japanese parent company.

An order was received through previous clients now based in Hong Kong for Terra Australis, a toile which had been specially designed for the Bicentennial in 1988, to be used in a special colourway in a converted 17th century barn in Gloucestershire, UK.

ROBERTSON MEAD also produced a special Swiss-printed toile for use in an ex-monastery in the Blue Mountains (NSW) - now a boutique hotel.

One lavish order required a special colourway of ROBERTSON MEAD's adaptation of an 18th century document originally woven in Lyon for Catherine II, Empress of Russia. The ROBERTSON MEAD print was colour-matched to an Armani blouse and used on walls, beds, canopies, etc.

The firm's reputation for bespoke colour involved them in the decoration of 24 suites for a well-known boutique hotel (formerly a convent) in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney. The same hotel group later asked for ROBERTSON MEAD's Bon-Bon design, printed in Switzerland, to coordinate with Jim Thompson silks in suites in the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Sydney's Double Bay.