KnollTextiles Introduces the Heritage Collection

KnollTextiles, the textiles trailblazer renowned for infusing beauty with function, celebrates its 75th anniversary in July 2022 by introducing The Heritage Collection: eight archive-inspired textiles that continue to evolve the modernist tradition.

The origin of Knoll's textile division lay in what Florence Knoll called "necessity," as her design vision was initially hampered by the lack of "suitable" fabrics available in the post-war period. Inspired by menswear, Florence modified wool from the garment industry, resulting in the first commercial upholstery. This unexpected adaptation of simple menswear fabric for furniture application signified the first step in Florence Knoll's enduring legacy of innovation and the founding of the KnollTextiles business in 1947.

The 75th anniversary provided the KnollTextiles design team an opportunity to mine its extensive archives for timeless products ripe for revision, whether that be an updated palette, design modifications, or fiber content changes to meet performance attributes appropriate for today's commercial standards.

Innovation in Material:

The classic, simple-weave cotton upholstery Prestini (1947) joins the new millennium with custom-made bleach-cleanable novelty yarn that recreates the same appealing high-twist texture and depth as the original. Once a silk and linen specialty panel fabric, Firenze (1985) is now a high-performance, multipurpose wallcovering that maintains the aesthetic of natural fibers. Likewise, Evelyn Hill's Kerry Linen drapery (1953) is interpreted as Kerry, a refined classic wool drapery fabric. Open-knit drapery is in KnollTextiles' DNA, and the delicate Filigree (1965 - designer unknown), initially inspired by fishing nets, is now inherently flame-resistant with Trevira® CS polyester.

New End-Uses for Iconic Prints:

Eyeing the future as they dipped into the past, the design team elected to change the end-use of some archival patterns in order to make the offerings more usable to a broader swath of specifiers. The iconic Rivers, designed by Gretl and Leo Wollner (1972), was initially printed on cotton and available only in three-meter panels. Rivers today is a full-width repeat upholstery with enhanced watercolor-like pigmentation, made possible with digital printing. Angelo Testa's equally iconic Campagna (1947) screenprinted linen drapery is re-introduced as Campagna Wall. The hand-drawn geometric now lives on this PVC-free wallcovering with Type II characteristics.

Textural Wovens:

The impactful use of rainbow novelty yarn in Aurora (1988) inspired our designers to source a unique multicolor space-dyed yarn for each color way of Aurora upholstery. A new creation altogether, Homage celebrates KnollTextiles' history of creating exaggerated textures with a hand-crafted aesthetic. In this case, Homage fuses three archival contributions: Buster by Marianne Strengell (1947), Jupiter (1967 - Julia Kleiner) and Marabu (1972- designer unknown). The individual patterns and textures now appear collaged together as a study of ten unique weave structures bound with a highlight of chunky contrast stitching.

In every era, KnollTextiles has been celebrated for its continuous exploration of innovative techniques and materials that create original textiles layered with rich, dimensional beauty and offer a hand-crafted aesthetic. True to form, the Heritage Collection combines the best archival design with next-generation technology, a union that could only result from KnollTextiles' fresh design eye.

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