Niche Brand Spolia Gives New Life to Luxury Upholstery Fabrics
MILAN — If you can’t lie on their sofas, you can now at least wear their upholstery fabrics, courtesy of new brand Spolia.
New York-based interior designer Valerie Name Bola?o, who is the creative mind behind some of Manhattan’s most stylish residences, is launching a luxury fashion brand featuring outerwear pieces crafted from upcycled upholstery textiles.
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“Hunting fabrics is my passion,” said Name Bola?o, who was raised between Caracas, Venezuela, and Madrid, and who studied design at the Savannah College of Art and Design and Central Saint Martins before moving to New York, where she currently lives. “Also, visiting a lot of showrooms placing orders for custom-made pieces for my clients, I discovered this world of discarded and forgotten textile offcuts and I decided to give them a second life.”
Officially launching this month during Paris Fashion Week, Spolia offers six different outerwear styles, including a trench, a blazer, a cape with scenic draped sleeves, and an overshirt among others, all crafted from precious textiles. They include luxury taffetas, blends of raffia, silk and cotton and linen and wool jacquard cloths, just to cite a few. To add extra refinement to the items, Name Bola?o enriches them with special touches, such as handmade ceramic buttons crafted in Paris.
Courtesy of Spolia
Working with deadstock fabrics, each style is one-of-a-kind, or available in very limited quantities. Crafted in New York, the pieces retail at prices ranging from 830 euros to 1,800 euros.
While Name Bola?o plans to mainly work through a direct-to-consumer model, she is considering creating partnerships with select stores, as well as with galleries. “My ambition is to keep it very niche,” the designer said. “This project is not about trends, it’s a hybrid between interior design and fashion. It’s about making a few, special items to treasure for a long time.”
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