HBF Textiles Debuts New Collection with Elodie Blanchard
New Basics continues Blanchard’s past collections, with playful takes on geometric designs
HBF Textiles has collaborated with Elodie Blanchard for the third time with a collection that reimagines classic motifs as anything-but-basic textiles. The New Basics collection of upholstery fabrics celebrates timeless patterns like minimal geometrics and modernizes them through color and texture. To inspire the line, designer Elodie Blanchard first experimented in another medium: paper. Blanchard tested folding, cutting, and hole-punching paper to find the shapes and sizes of each of the three textiles designs. From there, her vision was translated to fabric, using weave structures and tufted textures to mimic their original effects.
Blanchard explains, “I was particularly inspired by the works of artists Frank Stella and Agnes Martin, with their abstract, minimal aesthetics. For New Basics, we used that same simplicity and applied it to a modern design environment. Using HBF Textiles’ intuitive approach to color and expertise in dimensional weaving, we created a final collection that exudes ‘high-tech happy’—something that is usable and classic, but still makes you smile.”
Blanchard has a history of creative textile design. Her aesthetic is modern and imaginative, with each unique piece showcasing her ability to take everyday objects and transform them into extraordinary textiles with diverse design applications. New Basics is the third collection in her ongoing collaborative series with HBF Textiles, and it acts as a continuation of her first two. Two of the new designs, Dot Grid and Moving In, are plays on best sellers from her award-winning 2014 line, and the New Basics upholstery fabrics act as complements to her earlier Winter 2016 collection of wrapped panel textiles. All of the collections link together through Blanchard’s unique approach to texture, fiber, and pattern.
Adds HBF Textiles Vice President of Design, Mary Jo Miller, “We look beyond the design itself to understand how it interplays with surface and color. Elodie’s modern take on New Basics turns up the volume on classic patterns with a playful edge that incorporates a textural identity.”
Fabrics in the New Basics collection include:
Folded Line: This geometric floral pattern is made up of layered triangles with fine outlines. By altering the weave structure, the design achieves subtle color changes that create a second layer to the pattern. Folded Line is suitable for both upholstery and wrapped panel applications, with a 100% recycled content construction that is also bleach cleanable. Folded Line is available in 12 colorways: Chalk & Black, Taupe & Brown, Yellow & Taupe, Red & White, Melon & Blue, Sky & Coral, Grey & Aqua, Navy & White, Indigo & Orange, Beige & Green, Charcoal & Gold, Black & White.
Dot Grid: Dot Grid was created by layering three grids to form a single, unified design. Large dots are set inside a grid of lines, with tiny diamonds at each intersection. Dot Grid is a continuation of Dot Structure, Blanchard and HBF Textiles’ NeoCon Gold winning fabric from 2014. Dot Grid shines in nine distinct color combinations: Gold & Lavender, Red & Orange, Melon & Red, Blue & Orange, Apple & Blue, Silver & Aqua, Grey & Orange, Iron & Blue, Black & White.
Moving In: Inspired in part by Blanchard’s HBF Textiles fabric Moving Blanket, Moving In features a sophisticated matelassé construction. The textile displays an isometric pattern that creates a perfect grid. The stitched texture transforms the classic dot design into a high-tech material. Moving In is available in nine colors: Magnolia Ln, Mellow Dr, Sunset Blvd, Lake Shore Dr, Ocean Dr, Spring St, Prospect Ave, Main St, Miller St.
About Elodie Blanchard
French designer Elodie Blanchard began designing clothes and organizing fashion shows in her teens, before moving to Paris to study sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and fashion at the Duperre School of Design and Fashion. She won the young designer prize at the International Fashion Arts Festival of Hyeres, which gave her the opportunity to sell her eponymous clothing line at the famed French La Redoute store. As the recipient of the Colin-Lefrancq grant, she studied at CalArts in Los Angeles, where she collaborated with musicians and dancers creating musical clothes and street performances. This intimate knowledge of material and fabrication led her to start her own Brooklyn company ELODIE BLANCHARD STUDIO in 2005, through which she produces her own projects and custom textile installations and designs for clients. New Basics is her third collection with HBF Textiles.
About HBF Textiles
HBF Textiles gives dimension to the lives and spaces of users, designers and communities through the essential qualities of fabric. Our expertise comes from understanding the inherent qualities of fabric—yarn, dyeing, spinning, structure and weave. What we produce is not just textiles, but a larger web of relationships. Weaving textiles together with manufacturing and production, we are part of a two hundred year old legacy of textile manufacturing within North Carolina. And, with like-minded mills and collaborators––locally and globally––we explore together the myriad of possibilities of what fabric can be. Visit us at: www.hbftextiles.com.
