A MANUFACTURING business whose designs can be found in the UK Supreme Court and V&A Museum is gearing up to expand in London and launch in Berlin nearly three decades after being founded by a couple of Glasgow School of Art graduates.

Timorous Beasties, whose founders Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons have been designing and manufacturing luxury wallpapers and fabrics from a Glasgow warehouse since 1990, is in the process of doubling the size of its London showroom in a bid to increase sales in the capital by 30 per cent.

The plan is for the Clerkenwell-based store, which opened in 2006, to mimic the success of the firm’s shop on Glasgow’s Great Western Road, which operates not only as a showcase for Mr McAuley and Mr Simmons’ bold designs but as a thriving retail outlet too.

Read more: Gleneagles Hotel's new owners to give it a multi-million pound makeover

“In Glasgow, people come into our shop and buy – 90% of our sales come from footfall [and the remainder from showroom appointments],” Mr McAuley said.

“In London it’s the other way round and we want to encourage more retail and more footfall. If Glasgow can just open its doors and do what it does London, by the same virtue, should do the same.”

Mr McAuley said the firm expects to open a similar base in Berlin, which is attractive to Timorous Beasties as a location because it has “the same feeling as Glasgow”.

“Prior to the Brexit vote we were looking at places in Berlin and we still are,” Mr McAuley said.

“Berlin is the kind of place I’d expect Timorous Beasties to go. We want to grow the business in that kind of way.”

While the firm, which employs 15 people, turns over in the region of £2.5 million a year and has a profit margin of 10 per cent, Mr McAuley said the figures have been “kind of steady” for the past few years.

This is in part because it took the business a long time to establish a client base and in part because Mr McAuley and Mr Simmons will only follow opportunities that they feel totally committed to.

“When we started out we were selling luxury goods in a market that wasn’t very welcoming,” Mr McAuley said. “No one needs this stuff, so it took a long, long time.”

With the firm’s eye-catching designs now adorning everything from bedroom walls at upmarket London hotel Claridge’s to windows at the Supreme Court and the exterior of Glasgow shopping mall Princes Square, Timorous Beasties has come in for the attention of external investors on a number of occasions but has so far always resisted.

Read more: Designers drafted in for Royal Mile hotel revamp

“We’ve had offers from investors but we didn’t want to do that,” Mr McAuley said.

Similarly, while the business was close to signing a partnership deal in New York a few years ago, ultimately it decided to focus on organic growth instead.

“We move very slowly,” Mr McAuley said. “We were close to opening in New York three years ago in a partnership thing but it just didn’t feel right. We do things slowly and we grow slowly so we can keep it ourselves.”

With online demand for products featuring the firm’s iconic giant thistle and birds and bees designs meaning its Anniesland warehouse, where it hand prints some fabrics and papers, is bursting at the seams, it looks likely that that part of the business will have to expand too.

As with everything else at Timorous Beasties, though, the firm is only likely to make a move when the extra space it finds is absolutely right.

“Our housing is an issue,” Mr McAuley said. “We need more warehouse space and there are a couple of units nearby that are possibilities.

“We’ve looked at other places that are maybe a mile away but we know that’s going to be a hassle.

“When you’re trying to do something that’s unique it’s difficult to input that into someone who is a mile away from you.”

In the meantime, the firm is focusing on completing a number of high-profile projects, including refurbishment work at a golf club near Loch Lomond and a commission for the Royal Opera House in London.

Read more: Tom Kitchin unveils £1m restaurant expansion

"We have nice unique projects coming in in London," Mr McAuley said.

"We get hotel projects all the time and we'll do anything from supplying a couple of cushions to doing 2,500 square metres of wall coverings."

Not that the firm chooses projects based on size, with Mr McAuley noting that he will take on anything that interests him because "I just love the whole process".