Bold and Contemporary

Modern fabrics and accessories from Lindsay Cowles. Part of our series on top Virginia designers for your home.

A Richmond native, Lindsay Cowles began working in the fashion industry in New York and Los Angeles, although she’s always been attracted to painting. Today, she creates abstract oil paintings—often textured, sometimes in electric colors—that inspire her bold, architectural designs for fabric, wallpaper and, now, rugs. 

Cowles is particular about the materials she uses: Belgian linen, bamboo silk, tightly woven grasscloth wallpaper—all of which make appearances in her Fan neighborhood home that also functions as a showroom.  

“I want to be able to visualize how it’s going to work in someone’s house,” she says. “I’m painting it on the walls in my mind.”


This article originally appeared in our 2018 House + Garden issue.

Kate Andrews
Kate Andrews is a past contributor to Virginia Living.
March 22, 2025

History Day

Virginia Museum of the Civil War at New Market Battlefield State Historical Park