MinaLima Rolls Out Wallpaper Designs

MinaLima is rolling out a line of Wizarding World themed wallpapers, and frankly, though I am no fan of Harry Potter adaptations or junk marketed to global fandom (Underwear! Toothpaste! Jewelry! Tattoos!), I am impressed by the image quality of this product, it’s non-exploitative price point, and its homage to the English tradition of high grade wallpaper design.

You can see the images on the PotterMore site and at MinaLima.com, from which the pictures in this post have been borrowed. There is a Marauder’s Map, a Black Family tapestry, a Quidditch design for the nursery, and a Wizarding World book covers set for your home library.

The price and size of each roll wasn’t immediately available but Lesley Stevens, long-suffering friend of this weblog who lives near London, responded to my plea for help.

I called the shop, and the wallpaper is £89 per roll, and it is 950mm wide by 10 m long. With a five week lead time, I mentioned that the web links don’t work, and the lady I spoke to laughed and said that the demand had been so great that the Muggle website couldn’t cope, she also suggested that I pop into the shop to have a look at it in reality.

Thank you, Lesley! £89 translated into transatlantic currency is $111.11 US. 950mm is 37 inches, 10m is 393 feet or 33 feet. How does that price compare with other wallpaper rolls in size and price?

An American ‘double roll’ is either 21″ x 33′ or 27″ x 27′ Prices online for patterned paper in double rolls begin at $101. Rolls from Specialty houses like ‘Designer’s Guild’ or ‘Morris’ begin at $111 and go much higher, even three times that.

From this side of the Atlantic, it sounds like MinaLima is not price gouging. It’s pricey, certainly, but not stratospherically so, as much of the upper end Potter memorabilia and marketing trash can be. What they charge for shipping from their London and Osaka shops, heaven knows.

I like this new offer for two reasons. First, it brings up memory of the wallpaper in my brother Steve’s bedroom in our childhood home. My parents papered it with a design akin to MinaLima’s Wizarding World media headlines but this one was made up of Chicago Tribune front pages from the early and mid 20th century. I used to sneak into Steve’s bedroom when he wasn’t at home and just read the walls.

And then there are the echoes of William Morris in the MinaLima natural designs. In addition to being one of the more important first contributors to the English high fantasy literary tradition (Tolkien was strongly and positively influenced by both Morris’ literary and artistic accomplishments), Morris was the leader of the Arts and Crafts movement in 19th Century England. He founded ‘Morris and Company,’ still very much a going concern, to market his intricate wallpaper designs and to facilitate the high craftsmanship of his manufacturing methods.

Harry Potter wallpaper, in other words, especially those rolls with obvious Morris-inspired designs seems especially apt both as a fun thing of beauty for the Serious Readers home as well as a tribute to the link between art, literature, and daily life that Morris forged in everything he created.

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