Kvadrat Launches First UK Retail Partnership with Skandium at Selfridges and Partners with Faye Toogood at the V&A
A very busy and exciting London Design Festival lies ahead for Danish textile brand Kvadrat as they announce the first UK retail partnerships with Skandium at Selfridges and Harrods, as part of the Textile Library, and a collaboration with Faye Toogood as part of a V&A landmark project.
Skandium at Selfridges
From Monday September 21s, Skandium at Selfridges, London
This September will also see Kvadrat launch their first UK retail partnership with Skandium at Selfridges, where the full Kvadrat/Raf Simons home accessories collection, previewed earlier this year, will be curated as part of the store’s permanent edit. The exclusive range of beautiful home textiles from Dior Couture’s Creative Director, will be available in full and as a consumer first at Skandium, Selfridges.
Faye Toogood and Kvadrat – The Cloakroom
19th – 27th September, V&A, London
Press preview Friday 18th 9-11, VIP tours and talk with Faye Toogood Friday 25th during ‘Late Night’
Installed at pivotal London Design Festival hub, the V&A throughout the festival period, Faye Toogood will be creating 150 coats made from Kvadrat’s sculptural Highfieldtextile. Marking an emergence in the fashion world from British designer Faye Toogood, V&A guests will be invited to check coats out of the circular-railed cloakroom and wear them whilst exploring the museum’s collections. The coats will also incorporate sewn-in maps that will guide wearers to a further 10 specially-commissioned Faye Toogood garments, located throughout the V&A. These individual couture pieces hidden in the galleries will take the form of reinterpreted items from the museum’s collections.
Harrods
From September onwards, Harrods, Brompton Road, London
Exhibition: 19th – 27th September
In another exciting retail move – from September, Kvadrat will also be a part of the eponymous Harrods Fabric Library, within their exclusive interior design service and to celebrate, will preview as part of an in-store installation, to run as part of the festival program.
Harrods will be celebrating design heritage with their Timeless Design pop-up exhibition situated next to the Fabric Library, featuring key design heritage brands – including Kvadrat – to tell stories that are integral to the history of these products. For Kvadrat, the story will be created around their iconic Hallingdal collection, the textile upon which the business was built, as they showcase a retrospective excerpt of pieces from their Hallingdal 65 exhibition.
www.kvadrat.com / @kvadrattextiles
About Kvadrat
Kvadrat was established in Denmark in 1968 and has deep roots in Scandinavia’s design tradition. Kvadrat holds the leading position in Europe’s high-quality contemporary textiles market. We supply architects, designers and private consumers across the world with textiles and textile-related products. Our products reflect our commitment to colour, quality, simplicity and innovation. Kvadrat fabrics have been used in some of the world’s most important architectural landmarks, such as 30 St Mary Axe, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles; Oslo Opera House, Norway; Reichstag, Berlin; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; Copenhagen Opera House, Denmark and Guangzhou Opera House, China.
At Kvadrat, we consistently push the aesthetic, technological and functional properties of textiles. In doing so, we collaborate with leading designers, architects and artists, including; David Adjaye, Miriam Bäckström, Tord Boontje, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Thomas Demand, Olafur Eliasson, Alfredo Häberli, Giulio Ridolfo, Peter Saville, Finn Sködt, Roman Signer, as well as Patricia Urquiola.
About Faye Toogood
Faye Toogood is a British designer. Her furniture and objects demonstrate a preoccupation with materiality and experimentation. All of her pieces are handmade by small-scale fabricators and traditional artisans, with an honesty to the rawness and irregularity of the chosen material. With an academic training in the theory and practice of fine art, and a vocational background at the forefront of the magazine industry, Toogood approaches product design with a singular and acutely honed eye. Her highly sculptural work, while showing an astute respect for the past, is derived from pure self-expression and instinct. Toogood’s objects are grouped together into her trademark numbered ‘Assemblages’. This allows her to avoid the formulaic, to experiment with the materials and processes that dominate her thinking at a particular time. With each Assemblage, she engages not only with the products themselves but also with the three-dimensional space in which they are exhibited, working across multiple disciplines to create a single body of work with an intuitive and unified narrative.
About Selfridges
The business was founded by American entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1909 and was widely regarded as the first and best example of a modern department store. Harry Gordon Selfridge ran the store himself until he retired in 1940. After several ownerships the company was de-merged from the Sears Group in 1998 and floated on the London Stock Exchange. In 2003 W. Galen Weston purchased Selfridges and under his ownership Selfridges has become an extraordinary UK destination for fashion, luxury and retail theatre. In June 2010 Selfridges was named Best Department Store in the World for the first time by the IGDS (Intercontinental Group of Department Stores). The title, which Selfridges held until June 2012, is the industry’s highest accolade. Selfridges won the title again in June 2012, and again in 2014 for an unprecedented three times consecutively. The title applies until June 2016. Selfridges has four stores in London, Birmingham and Manchester (Trafford Centre, Exchange Square) and an online store delivering within the UK and to over 60 countries internationally including China. Selfridges today, continues Harry Gordon Selfridge’s legacy – a shopping experience that promises to surprise, amaze and amuse its customers by delivering extraordinary customer experiences.
For more information visit selfridges.com.
About Skandium
Skandium is a British company, founded in 1999 by three Scandinavians. The aim is to be the best retailer of Scandinavian design & furniture in the world, giving customers a wide product choice while being served by knowledgeable staff in a well-presented environment. The family of stores in London consists of two Skandium stores, a Skandium concession in the department store Selfridges, a Republic of Fritz Hansen store and an online store. Skandium also does wholesale to other retailers, contract sales for commercial projects and interior design for private clients. The first Skandium store opened on the 15th September 1999 at 72 Wigmore Street, London W1
