The Future Of Fabric

The Sunday Age

Sunday April 20, 2008

Michelle Hamer, with Gary LaPersonne

Colour, pattern, high-tech printing and custom design has fired a textile comeback. Michelle Hamer reports.

Fabric is back as an important element in home design as an increasing number of consumers seek to replace the stark interiors of minimalism with splurges of warmth.

However, beige-on-beige tones are out; the emphasis is on colour, pattern, comfort - a celebration of home and luxury.

While some classic designs still hold sway, what's helping drive the turnaround to fabrics is dramatic new printing technology options and personalised design as cashed-up Australians put quality and individualism ahead of cost.

Expect a revolution in textile choices - from paper and bamboo to stinging nettles and weeds - in the years to come. But, for the present, Melbourne interior designer Danielle Trippett believes the reappearance of fabrics also reflects a desire for luxury, a richness and opulence that has been lacking in recent years.

"It's a return to a more well-rounded interior that has softness, comfort and texture," she says. "It could be a beautiful chair in a sumptuous brocade, or cushions in rich velvet fabric. It's about adding splashes of luxury through fabric."

Ashton Grove Melbourne's head designer Crisanne Fox says: "Many clients are going for eclectic choices and combining period and contemporary pieces.

"Our most popular items are Louis XV chairs and rustic farmhouse-style tables. People want their furniture to be usable and low-maintenance - contemporary fabrics for their durability, and the rustic tables for day-to-day use."

The Louis XV chairs combine a French frame with Tea House fabric, a Japanese-influenced textile linen/cotton mix.

Expect Asian-inspired fabrics to gain popularity. "We'll be seeing a contemporary take on an Asian aesthetic," says Edwina Hirst, lecturer at Sydney's International School of Colour and Design.

"Lacquered reds will figure, as will Chinese mustard yellow. These will be used as accent colours in fabrics, or perhaps on a signature chair."

Patrick Snelling, program coordinator of textiles at RMIT University, Brunswick, adds that fabric application is now being explored well beyond domestic use.

"We are working with architectural and industrial design students, teaching them about ways to apply textiles as structural elements - and that has never happened before."

Snelling says customisation is the buzz word, with consumers keen to add a personalised feel to their interior design.

It's a shift Trippett has also identified. "People are using fabric that reflects their personality; their lifestyle. Fabric allows people to be more expressive and to personalise interior design."

Fox adds that patterned fabrics and velvet stripes are in high demand, as are scatter cushions. "This is heavily influenced by the popularity of interior magazines. People see interesting/daring interiors in magazines and want to have this kind of creativity in their own home," she says.

Along with the new trends, many clients seeking to make an elegant statement will continue to favour design classics such as Ray and Charles Eames' fabrics, says Shirley Cooper, senior designer at Hunter and Richards.

But the age of carefully matching cushions to couches is over. "I use base colours in simple full-drop fabrics for curtaining, and complement that with a mix of differing and versatile fabrics on the furnishings, creating a collaborative, eclectic feel," says Cooper.

The pattern clash is a firm trend in fabrics as design rules are broken and an era of eclecticism is born. "Outmoded ideas such as 'blue and green should not be seen' are being discarded," Snelling says. "The emphasis is on an ordered clash of colour and pattern."

Never has the adventurous consumer been so spoilt for choice in fabric design.

Natural fibres are a strong trend, as are metallics, and a return to the Florence Broadhurst designs of the 1970s. Texture is important, and blended fibres offer a contemporary spin on traditional fabrics, boosted by a dash of luxury from a strip of silk or jacquard.

Jo D'Elia, state manager of Hawthorn fabric wholesaler Unique Fabrics, says ethnic fusion is also a popular trend, exemplified in the new Continental Drift range from Netherlands-based fabric designers Carlucci, which is a melding of flavours from Asian and Moroccan influences.

Textile designers are also experimenting with a new range of fibres, including paper and bamboo, says D'Elia.

New design and printing technology is vastly expanding fabric options, allowing for the layering of design techniques and creating a landscape of composite fabrics from the most unlikely crops - think stinging nettles and weeds, and you'll understand just how far-reaching fabric experimentation has extended.

Nettle - a new fabric blended from weed and wool - is a new player in a world where sustainability and environmental concerns are impacting on consumer choice.

But fashion is still the strongest dictator of fabric choices - and a sophistication in fabric design is driving this option, says Snelling.

Digital fabric printing means "it's now entirely possible to design and print a 10-metre run of your own fabric in Melbourne. It won't be cheap, but it will be unique."

Cooper says the sky is the limit with the design possibilities of contemporary fabric, being seen more and more in complicated weaves.

Fabric design is spilling over into an art form, according to Trippett.

"I looked at a new fabric range recently. The fabric had been machine-printed and embroidered, and then hand-painted to create very fine detail - a fusion of old and new techniques. Sometimes you may see up to four design processes applied to the one piece of fabric."

Technology is also impacting on the durability of fabrics, allowing them to be engineered for great toughness, especially for outdoor use.

D'Elia says there is strong demand for fabrics that are weather-tolerant and mould-resistant to be used for outdoor curtaining and cushions.

"The idea of the outdoor room is increasingly being embraced, and new, stronger fabrics allow for this use." -- with Gary LaPersonne

Investing in quality

Consumers are increasingly viewing fabric as an important investment for their house, and are willing to spend more than ever for quality.

Patrick Snelling, of textiles at RMIT University, Brunswick, says: "Some fabrics from Europe can cost $150 a metre. Australians, traditionally, wouldn't have paid that. But now they are realising that it is worth investing in beautiful and unique fabric."

Melbourne interior designer Danielle Trippett agrees: "As someone might view a beautiful piece of furniture as an asset that they will keep for the longer term, so too are my clients looking to better quality and more classic fabrics that will not date." Design forecast for 2008

Sizzling

- Using an eclectic mix of furniture styles to give individuality to a room

- Vintage 1960s fabrics

- French antiques - be careful, they must be good quality. Think gold and silver leaf

- Hollywood regency period furniture - white gloss, of course

- Knoll - designs by Bertoia and Saarinen; Herman Miller's Noguchi coffee table - always hot classics

- Polished chrome and polished brass used together

- 1980s "antiques" - chrome and marble furniture

- Arflex furniture - pure comfort

- Future systems furniture - aerodynamic, organic shapes

- Fabrics in bright green, blue and yellow - think Doris Day

- Animal-inspired ornamentation

- Wicker and roped furniture - white and blue

Cold as ice

- Total catalogue looks - boring

- Bad reproduction antiques

- Baroque furniture - too much, way too much

- Reproduction classics - if you can't afford it, then buy something else just as good for less

- Square slabs of beige leather furniture

- Cheap leather furniture

Source: Melbourne designer David Hicks

Blurring the lines

Is it art, fashion or interior design?

The lines between these three disciplines is blurring as leading fashion designers start to lend their skills to fabric design, and the art world begins to embrace textile design as a collectable and desirable art form.

It's now possible to choose beautiful fabrics from some of your favorite fashion designers such as Donna Karan, Prada or Paul Smith. Or, perhaps, a floor rug designed by Melbourne's cutting-edge fashion designer Akira Isogawa.

According to Tim Fisher, senior curator at the Arts Centre in Melbourne, textiles are an increasingly collectable art form, being sought by galleries and private collectors.

"The provenance of textiles are literally woven into the fabric," he says. "It's not just about how the piece looks, but also about how it was made, with what fibre and what it was made for."

Textile art is a medium through which many stories could be told. The National Gallery of Victoria began collecting Asian textiles 25 years ago and today has a significant collection.

The Arts Centre collects costumes from around the country as part of its textiles collection, which Fisher says forms part of Australia's performing arts history.

Fabric can be used as an art form in a home as a wall hanging, a fabric feature wall, or as a specifically chosen piece of textile art.

CONTACTS

Ashton Grove, 9824 1223, ashtongrove.com.au

Danielle Trippett, 9686 3177, danielletrippett.com

Great Dane, 9510 6111, greatdanefurniture.com

Hunter & Richards, 9533 8000, hunterandrichards.com

Unique Fabrics, 9816 2000, uniquefabrics.com.au

Warwick Fabrics, 9419 7544, warwick.com.au