Texture Dominates New Fabrics at Interwoven Textile Show
HIGH POINT, N.C. — While the hygge trend of a few years ago has faded, the desire for rich texture — from delicate embroidery to chunky weaves — persists in home design. Case in point: The recent Interwoven textile fair held here, where texture reigned among the luxury upholstery, leather and trim showrooms.
Known for their deft use of texture and color, De Leo Textiles had plenty for buyers and designers to see and feel with introductions across three lines. The company’s Flagship collection took inspiration from Sedona, Ariz., with warm desert colors such as paprika, marigold and even ochre and textures ranging from intricate embroideries and dainty eyelash qualities to high-pile caterpillar chenilles.
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“We are all about texture,” said Todd Bowles, the firm’s designer and sales representative. “De Leo is a boutique, and so what we hang our hat on is innovation in terms of texture, color, yarn, pattern and artwork choices.”
For its Carousel collection, De Leo incorporated bouclé, but gave it a more understated and updated feel.
“There is a bit of a trend to make the bouclé a little less fluffy and tie it down just a bit more,” Bowles said. “You have something with a more lower pile, that’s a little more sophisticated.”
Para Tempotest, the Italian maker of luxury performance fabrics, launched the Capstone collection, a line designed to work just as well indoors as it does out.
“This is a luxury solution-dyed acrylic,” said Zachary Bryant, director at Tempotest. “It’s made of a long-staple fiber, which is a little over twice as long as our normal fibers.”
And that long-staple fiber gives Capstone — which comes in seven patterns and seven neutral colorways — an exceptionally soft texture.
“We styled it to bridge between indoor and outdoor for those indoor folks who are looking for performance, but they don’t want the rough hand of a canvas,” Bryant said. “It has the feel of indoor linens and cottons — it’s so soft.”
The marriage of performance and texture played out in the Sunbrella showroom as well. The venerable outdoor fabric company has made a shift over the last decade to create fabrics that offer the same soft, luxurious hand as indoor textiles.
This season the company launched 25 patterns and 25 colorways influenced by nature and artisan techniques.
New fabrics from Sunbrella.
“One of my favorites from a texture standpoint has a chenille yarn in it, but it has a very velvety look, which is a really great use of our novelty yarns and shows some of our capabilities in a really elevated way,” said Amy Gillam, design manager, outdoor and retail segments at Sunbrella. “And we’re also incorporating some of those textured yarns to make the fabrics look more embroidered.”
Even body cloths got a touch of texture in Sunbrella’s Luxury Plains line. While the collection stuck to a neutral palette of mostly solid colors, what it lacked in pattern it made up for with textures that exemplify its luxury moniker.
“It’s all about that soft hand, chunky textures and the perception that, ‘Hey, this is luxury,’” Gillam said. “We have some more refined linen-like textures, and we’ve brought in yarns that create more of a melange surface interest.”
And while Gillam admitted bouclé has become less popular than it had been, she said there’s still a place for the yarn and the texture it brings to fabrics.
“Some people will say, ‘Oh, bouclé is out,’” she said. “And maybe the super-chunky, heavy bouclé is on the way out, but the more refined use and look of it is definitely very much still in.”
Texture has always been a key component for leather upholstery companies such as Moore & Giles. The company offers an assortment of hides in textures ranging from full grain complete with distinctive neck wrinkles to leathers with wax and oil finishes that give them a smoother sheen.
At this Interwoven, they upped the texture ante with a new basket-weave embossed nubuck leather made in Italy.
“We have an embossing plate, so it’s stamped,” said Tom Apps, vice president of sales operations at Moore & Giles. “They line up the plate, stamp it, line it up again, and so on.”
Elsewhere throughout the market, companies rolled out a variety of textures, including embroidery looks and high-pile novelty yarn configurations at Kravet and performance velvets and vegan leather at Nassimi.
Fabrics from Kravat.
While color and pattern trends tend to shift more rapidly, the desire for texture — and the comfort and visual interest it brings — seems poised to have a major role in the home for the foreseeable future.
“We are still seeing a high demand for texture,” Gillam said. “People still really want and crave that. So we have come out with a lot of new ways to bring that texture into a home, to help people create those highly textural spaces.”
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