Despite winter’s best efforts, spring is, in fact, coming. If the weather is no indication, the news of new spring textile collections is definitely one. We’ve rounded up the newest introductions from a few of our favorite contract textile companies. Ahead of NeoCon, these brands are busy bees, pushing out spring season releases while at the same time preparing for the show in Chicago this June.
We found a few common threads in many of these new textiles: reconciling digital and natural worlds (think coding), tactility and imaginative textures, combining luxury and durability, and using cutting-edge technologies to bring new materials and processes to the market.
For your viewing pleasure!
Designtex
Designtex has oodles of good stuff coming down the pipeline in the next six months. We talked to Susan Lyons, president and creative head of Designtex to get the scoop on two pairs of new textiles.
“A lot of our work comes out in pairs and trios, rather than large overarching collections,” says Ms. Lyons. “When our designers experiment and then hit on something, we like to get it out, and let it manifest on its own.”
Paint Dot and Color Bars are digitally printed and based on biophilic design principles documented by Steelcase researchers.
The research behind Paint Dot points to nature’s ability to use the unexpected to “trigger the excitement of exploration and discovery.” Paint Dot mixes hard and soft surfaces, balancing “the simplicity of a modern grid with a surprise of full-spectrum paint swirls upon closer look.”
Color Bars is based around the biophilic principle that “a subtle sense of movement is stimulating and rejuvenating.” A simple dash jets vertically and horizontally in an organic, randomized structure. “Inspired by fractals and movement, the pattern plays with visual complexity through rhythm and variation in color and relationships.”
“Paint Dot and Color Bars are two textiles that show how the design team around here is having a lot of fun experimenting with our digital printing capabilities,” says Ms. Lyons. “We’re still finding new ways to use our digital printing studio in Portland [Maine], and learning what digital printing can do for textiles.”
Paint Dot and Color Bars are both digitally printed, and offer an alternative to PVC (Content: DNA: 40% Latex, 30% Cellulose (Postconsumer Recycled), 20% Cellulose, 10% Polyester).
The second pair of textiles, called Score and Symbol, combine natural and orderly forms.
“Score and Symbol take geometric forms and break them down into self-same shapes,” says Ms. Lyons. “How can we weave patterns that have a geometric quality, but are also organic? It’s an underpinning of geometry, but more akin to natural shapes.”
Score is a whimsical exploration of line and scale, and Symbol is strong and graphic: “an unexpected curvature of half circles intersect linear geometry and saturated color blocks; the patterning suggesting an artful alphabet or fanciful coding.”
NeoCon sneak preview: Designtex will move down from floor 10 at the Mart to unveil a brand new showroom on the third floor, in the former Bernhardt space. Ms. Lyons says the new showroom, designed by Standard Issue, will focus more attention on materials support and educating designers on the techniques, fiber and yarn technologies that form textiles. “We’ll be able to help designers navigate all of the fabrics they’re spec’ing for their projects.” In addition to new in-house designs, Designtex will debut a new capsule collection for West Elm Workspace, as well as the fruits of their collaboration with Coalesse, which focuses on scale and color.
Carnegie
Carnegie is setting itself up for a fantastic year. Its Inner Strength upholstery collection speaks to designers asking for luxury and high durability in the same fabric.
“The big challenge our designers are attempting to address is to make very luxurious, tactile fabrics for high abuse areas,” says Mary Holt, executive VP of Creative at Carnegie.
High design textiles are no longer vulnerable. They may look delicate and elegant, but they aren’t.
Inner Strength is geared toward contract and hospitality spaces and includes a mix of finishes and patterns, including metallics, stripes and florals. The collection exceeds 50,000-100,000 double rubs abrasion testing, and excellent dye and structural engineering enables it to be bleach cleanable and with no topical finishes. In the spotlight is our favorite, a textile called Cross Stitch.
Cross Stitch uses a traditional cross-stitch motif woven in a neutral, adorned with a floral pattern. A cross-stitch is then woven through the florals in rich layers.
“We used these unabashedly vibrant pops of color in place of the sweet pastel colors often used in traditional cross stitch work,” says Ms. Holt. “And we played a lot with scale to bring something fresh.”
Cross Stitch is one of those fabrics that takes on an entirely different look when upholstered to a piece of furniture, compared to its small sample – and this is where photography, a great back story, and coaching on how to talk about a fabric come in handy.
“As a textile designer, that’s often one of our biggest struggles,” notes Ms. Holt. “How do we communicate to a designer how this will actually look on a chair? If we can’t figure out how to communicate that, we’ve failed.”
Cross Stitch came to life when a few of Carnegie’s designers found the work of set designer and street artist Raquel Rodrigo. Rodrigo transforms the dowdy techniques and details of cross-stitch into large-scale street murals.
“Cross stitch has this reputation of being very delicate, very fragile and old-fashioned – something your grandmother might love,” says Ms. Holt. “Taking an old technique and making it modern and new is something we value. Even our younger interior design interns love it.”
Carnegie is also unveiling a new dimensional TPO wallcovering collection, developed using 3D printing tech. Check out next week’s edition of officeinsight for the full story.
“A lot of what started the development of our new textiles is the idea that we crave tactile stimulation,” says Ms. Holt. “We use computers and phones with hard, smooth, cold surfaces. This idea of tactile simulation affected the way we’re developing new products, but in very different ways.”
NeoCon sneak preview: Expect a renewed showroom with a focus on tactility and on more experiential, interactive features for designers and other visitors to play with.
Luna Textiles
From the enchanting Luna Textiles on the west coast comes two new upholstery fabrics.
Framework is a neutral texture coming from the Arts and Crafts Movement, which served as a reaction against Industrial Revolution processes. A color palette of ceramic inspired neutrals and pastels stays to true to the fabric’s Arts and Crafts muse for a departure from trending color schemes.
“It has a plain weave and a very handmade aesthetic. And it’s really soft to the touch, meant to counter the influence of technology,” says Dena Molnar, VP of design at Luna Textiles. “It’s very high-performance, but by design it doesn’t look like a performance fabric.”
And Highlight is a lush chenille offset by glowing stitches of “neon neutrals” and jewel tones.
In response to the design community asking for more sustainable features, neither Highlight nor Framework has a stain repellent finish upfront; instead, designers have the option to add it on after if they wish.
NeoCon sneak peak: In addition to showing Framework and Highlight, Luna will wrap its 2018 “NeoCon object” (previous objects include purses and Chanel-inspired jackets) unveil a new collection of graphic-based designs developed with data processing code. The Luna design team worked with a computational designer to use Processing.org, a platform for developing visual based graphics created with code. The new textiles’ profile: modern, bright and fresh, while still feeling anti-technical. “Each pattern has its own story related to the code.”
HBF Textiles
HBF Textiles’ Spring 2018 Collection, designed by VP Design + Creative Direction Mary Jo Miller, includes six new fabrics that tap into “Miller’s love for unexpected, dynamic combinations.” Of the six, Color Code and Digital Bloom caught our eye with their playful, yet thoughtful forms.
“I believe the quality of a tactile experience is essential. The materials used throughout the Spring Collection are thoughtful, warm, fuzzy, bold, and rich,” explains Ms. Miller, in the product introduction notes.
“Inspired by digital connectivity, Color Code and Digital Bloom recall a pixelated, design-savvy pattern that is impressively modern yet timeless…”
Color Code, woven in New Jersey at a family owned mill, is a simple design that uses many colors against a continuous backdrop.
Woven in a restored vintage Pennsylvania mill, Digital Bloom sets a floral pattern into a modern, pixelated world, recalling “a hip camouflage, a tiled floral, a complex puzzle.”
Arc-Com Fabrics
Arc-Com’s new four-pattern Reverb Collection interprets music visually, capturing the alluring, enchanted energy one feels when listening to a great piece of music. Each pattern, juxtaposing color and geometry, takes inspiration from a different music style.
Staccato’s bold bands of color offer drama; Crescendo’s linear flavor provides rhythm and movement. Sonata Stripe and Synch, a synthetic performance fiber providing a natural wool-like solid, round out the collection.
“Designers are using a lot of textures and solids right now,” says Amanda Eaton, VP of design at Arc-Com. “So when people do want to use a pattern, they’re choosing to make a big statement.”
Reverb speaks to those times where bold visual patterning is the goal. The collection’s bright color story “bright emerald greens, fiery oranges, brilliant fushias, and deep, saturated cobalt blues and teals. Charcoal greys and creamy neutrals highlight brighter accent colors.”
The entire Reverb Collection is made with 100% Sunbrella solution dyed acrylic and polyester, engineered for use in contract settings both indoors and outdoors.
“Sunbrella does a really wonderful job with their yarn development,” notes Ms. Eaton. “Synch, the solid in the collection, has a really great natural wool textured feel to it, but has all of the performance characteristics built-in, too.”
“The performance feature that sets Sunbrella fibers apart from regular polyesters or acrylics and makes them appropriate for outdoor use is their incredible lightfastness rating,” details the collection notes. “Sunbrella products are certified to 2000 hours lightfastness. Our regular running line products are tested to the ACT standard of 40 hours for indoor use. Sunbrella’s incredible lightfastness rating guards against fading when exposed to sunlight.”
All Reverb patterns are also Greenguard Gold certified for indoor air quality, FACTs Silver certified, and bleach cleanable.
NeoCon sneak peak: Arc-Com will debut its Heritage Collection, which comes to us from a tiny, round, painted village in Burkina Faso, Africa.
Over the span of three acres, the women of Tiebele cover their modest dwellings with geometrical frescoes. Using mixed dirt, natural chalk, charcoal and clay to create the designs, women in the village carefully seal them with a natural primer made from the leaves of the acacia locust tree.
“The women in this village create these amazing patterns that have so much cultural significance,” says Ms. Eaton, who is a huge African heritage fan. “When I visited the village and saw these homes, I knew I wanted to do something with it.”
Maharam
This March, Maharam introduced Albemarle, the 16th woven textile designed by Paul Smith in collaboration with the Maharam Design Studio.
“A departure from Smith’s signature stripes, Albemarle’s overlaid ellipses multiply into a large-scale, sinuous pattern of curving lines and interlocking diamonds,” notes the product details. “Finely etched into a tightly woven cotton ground, the motif is surrounded by shades of chartreuse, cranberry, olive, or cornflower –thereby infusing elegant geometric repetition with unexpected vibrancy.”
Unlike many of Smith’s upholstery textiles, Albemarle does not draw from traditional apparel references. Instead, it’s based on the bespoke cast-iron façade covering Smith’s No. 9 Albemarle Street shop in London. Designed in partnership with 6a Architects, the façade is based on drawings by Smith, translated into high relief, and nods to the Regency style of Georgian architecture found throughout London’s Mayfair district. The same ornamental pattern has since been translated into various garments and embossed leather accessories as part of the Paul Smith No. 9 collection, which debuted in September 2015.”
Camira
This spring, Camira is launching a new quilted version of its soft Synergy wool-blend textile. Called Synergy Quilt, the new line will debut as a trio of quilted patterns.
“The extra-wide Synergy Quilt gives designers and end users a sweeping set of new options for tantalizing textures…”
Camira is also introducing fresh new colorways for Blazer, a family of pure wool textiles, as well as for Gravity and Manhattan, a pair of polyester fabrics.