It's unlikely that anyone arrested for wearing some of Vivienne Westwood's more provocative output from the 1970s would ever have predicted a day when they could furnish their rooms top to bottom in her style, but for Dame Viv and her partner in sartorial infamy, Andreas Kronthaler, right now, it's all about surfaces. "We have a house full of wallpaper already," says Kronthaler, one of fashion's most charming and eccentric eccentrics, as he unrolls some of the 12 different patterns about to go into production by the top British wallpaper manufacturers Cole & Son. The range includes Vivienne's Lace (a design based on her signature) and Squiggle (inspired by the iconic 1981 Pirates collection).
"I love textiles in a room, especially with nothing else in it," says Kronthaler. "We've done a lot with The Rug Company, and last year we did squiggle-print cushions with Molteni & C. I'd love us to do curtains and bed linen next."
For Kronthaler and his wife, it's the anarchy of print, as well as the vast Westwood archive, that makes for such an exciting combo. "Personally, I always like a bit of clash," he says. "I like seeing wallpaper in a kitchen, against patterned china; I like the visual noise and the mess of it. At the studio I loved it when we put tartans together for a collection, with lots of clashing and strange colours and checks and stripes and flowers - it's so vibrant and alive."
At home, Kronthaler takes charge of most interiors decisions, but he has, on occasion, deferred to Westwood. As he unfurls a roll of Squiggle paper and fashions a voluminous toga from it, he recalls one faux pas: "I put a wallpaper up that was a huge leopard print and she wasn't mad about it, so we took it down. She was right: it was an old house and didn't suit. Sometimes you have to follow the rules - a bit."
The Cole & Son Vivienne Westwood Collection (£55 per roll) will be launched on September 27; www.cole-and-son.com