Yolande Milan Batteau is fueled by traditional craftsmanship. The founder of New York–based surface design studio Callidus Guild—which loosely translates from the Latin to “skilled” or “dexterous”—employs an array of time-honored techniques when creating her one-of-a-kind wallcoverings. “You have to read books, try out formulas and experiment,” she tells Business of Home. “My studio functions very much like a laboratory, and we’re always trying new things.”
Though she studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute, Batteau largely considers herself an autodidact, gleaning skills from her world travels and conversations with other artists. She launched Callidus Guild in the late 1990s while living in Northern California and exhibiting her fine artwork in galleries across the country.
The brand’s first major commission came in 2004, when Chanel—already a Callidus Guild wallcoverings client—asked Batteau to produce handcrafted casework for several of its retail jewelry boutiques. Projects for the likes of Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co. soon followed, the studio quickly becoming a go-to source for high-end bespoke surface designs throughout the fashion and interiors industries.
All of Batteau’s designs for Callidus Guild begin with a painterly motif and a mix of sumptuous materials. After making a rough rendering of a pattern, she uses various ancient artisanal methods, including water-gilding and shell inlay, to determine the best finish for each wallpaper. “Then my team and I approach different modes of production and color stories to create collections with varied surfaces and effects,” she says.
Inside the brand’s studio—headquartered in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, since 2004—Batteau and her group of more than a dozen artisans take on every aspect of the production process, from embedding precious metals to color tinting and on-site installation. Key techniques include combing, tooling and glazing, while preferred materials range from marble-dust plaster to mother-of-pearl. “Many of our artisans have been with us for years,” she says. “It can often take a year or two until an artist can truly reproduce our work.”
Each Callidus Guild wallcovering is handpainted and tailor-made to the designer’s project, down to hand-mixed pigments that match the stone, upholstery and hardware. The brand also offers a line of in-house designs, featuring standouts such as the shimmery mica-enriched Luster Daub and the rippling marble plaster Ribbon. “The core collection is the distillation of 30 years of work,” says Batteau.
She also works with big-name design brands on exclusive collaborations, including a line of 18 hand-knotted rugs for Tai Ping. “We translated some of our most expressive patterns into innovative textiles, using silk, wool, mohair and linen,” says Batteau. “It was really important for the rugs to be tactile and handmade, just like our wallcoverings.”
In January, Callidus Guild debuted Fleurs du Bien, a series of four handmade plaster styles that draws inspiration from Batteau’s home garden. The quartet of designs includes the damask-esque Forget Me Not and the beeswax-finished Narcissus. “This new body of work channels joy, memory and metamorphosis into every gesture, and reconnects us to the natural world,” she says. “Each piece feels more like a painting than a wallpaper.”
Currently hard at work on a handful of new patterns and additional colorways for the Fleurs du Bien collection, Batteau also plans to release Callidus Guild’s first line of lamps this fall. “We want our designs to bring a timeless exuberance to interiors,” she says. “My mission is to make the most beautiful work I can.”
