The wonderful thing about working with textiles is that it’s the icing on the cake,” says Francesca Muzio, co-founder of FM Architettura d’Interni. “Colour and texture set the tone and atmosphere for a space. They give a scheme its avour.” And this season there’s no shortage of flavour among the new collections, with vibrant colour palettes ranging from hot pinks and rust reds to teals, and high tactility through woven textures or rich embroidery. “Expect a cosmopolitan mix; eclectic points of inspiration that speak of history, travel and craftsmanship,” says Becky Metcalfe from the Design Centre in London.
When it comes to trends, this season’s fabrics also provide plenty of drama. “Designs for spring/summer 2019 showcase noble materials and impeccable finishes, with richly embroidered detail, opulent brocades, boucle and silk,” says Metcalfe. “There is nothing homespun about this trend; the textiles are decidedly high-end.” Rubelli Venezia’s latest line is the perfect example of this.
And where there is no overt opulence, there is texture and warmth, such as in Loro Piana’s beautiful new collection, Tressage. This return to an earthier aesthetic is by no means less luxurious, as demonstrated by the new Rug-In-Rug collection from Luke Irwin. “Recently, we have seen our customers wanting simple but sleek designs [instead of bright, bold patterns and colours],” Irwin says. “For many, less is more. You want a piece that complements its surroundings and doesn’t distract from the beautiful art or elaborate ornaments in the room but instead highlights them.”
The Rug-In-Rug collection features geometric designs and natural colours, namely “a unique mixture of neutral caramel and toffee hues, due to the wool being left undyed”, the designer says. All the rugs are organic and have been washed in water, not chemicals, during the manufacturing process: textiles that are healthy for the home environment and the wider world are the new luxury.
A notable development among the latest launches is also the number of performance fabrics, all of which still retain a tactility and quality undiminished by their increased durability. It seems whether high luxe or low key, indoors or out, new textiles have all bases covered.
Rubelli
The Rubelli Group has unveiled its new collections, which for the first time are split into two distinct lines: Rubelli Venezia, a range of couture-quality silks inspired by the ancient Venetian art of weaving; and Rubelli, a collection of innovative, high-performance fabrics, contemporary in style. For indoor and outdoor use, the range of technical fabrics are flame-retardant, colour-fast and resistant to wear and tear, making them as durable as they are aesthetically pleasing. Six fabrics come in a range of colourways, and are cleverly named accordingly, from Fiftyshades, Velvet Forty and Fabthirty, to Twilltwenty, Diecielode and Tenstripe. While contemporary in style and bursting with innovation, the technical fabrics retain the quality and tactility for which Rubelli textiles are famous.
From £75 per metre, rubelli.com
Dedar
Dedar has added new colourways to its popular Adamo & Eva collection, resulting in a total of 69 shades of the plush cotton-velvet. The Italian textile house’s new Campus fabric, a sunny geometric weave layered on to a polypropylene base to make it suitable for outdoor use, is just the thing for cushions on a sundeck.
Riviere Rugs
London-based Riviere Rugs has launched two new designs. The first, Raku, taken from the Japanese word for comfort and enjoyment, features an oversized border design with a subtle graduated fade-out effect in seven hand-dyed colours. The second is Trevi Patina, where designers Camilla and Leo Riviere have taken inspiration from crumbling plasterwork found on the wall of a Roman townhouse near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. Consisting of a complex weave using 14 colours, the result is a beautiful, muted rug with a gentle overall sheen. Riviere uses Tibetan wool, known for its softness, durability and high lanolin content, and fine Chinese silk, which brings a delicate lustre to the textile that enhances the design and luxury feel of the floor covering.
Loro Piana
Loro Piana’s latest collection, Tressage, pays homage to the natural world, combining rich botanical textures and prints with an earthy colour palette of rusty reds, burnt oranges, soft blue-greys and straw. Natural raw materials are also the focus, from linen and silk to Merino wool, at times in pure form, at other times blended. And with nature at its heart, it feels fitting that a number of the fabrics in the new collection also feature special materials woven into the structure of the textile to enhance performance and durability, making them a potentially stylish addition to your sundeck.
Chi Design
For the coming year, Chi Design, the Italian manufacturer of bespoke carpets and rugs, is focusing on “narrowing the gap between art and design”. Whether producing contemporary designs in geometric shapes and plain colours or something more traditional in stronger shades or more colour gradients, its carpets are hand-crafted using the very best materials, from silk and New Zealand wool to more hard-wearing nylon blends and yarn (a blend of cotton and silk). For 2019 it will further develop its handmade manufacturing process, to make even the most ambitious client request possible.