The MATTER collection

Wolf-Gor­don Design Stu­dio has col­lab­o­rat­ed with Dutch tex­tile design­er Mae Engel­geer to devel­op an expres­sive new col­lec­tion of uphol­stery fab­rics. Draw­ing from her cross-mar­ket exper­tise, Engel­geer focused on devel­op­ing a group of sophis­ti­cat­ed yet play­ful fab­rics, with tac­til­i­ty and a res­i­den­tial influ­ence. The result is three tex­tile pat­terns that mix nat­ur­al wool and cot­ton with poly­ester and metal­lic yarns, bring­ing a warm, lux­u­ri­ant feel to seat­ing intend­ed for work­place and hos­pi­tal­i­ty interiors.

Engelgeer’s design process begins with con­ceiv­ing of a spe­cif­ic feel­ing and ​“atmos­phere,” inspired by her trav­els, muse­um vis­its, and cur­rent fash­ion. She then sketch­es dif­fer­ent shapes and uses pho­tos, col­or swatch­es, and mate­r­i­al sam­ples to help visu­al­ize her con­cepts and give them tex­ture and dimen­sion. Her sketch­es are trans­formed into dig­i­tal files and then into phys­i­cal pro­to­types on jacquard weav­ing machines at the Tex­tiel-Lab, a fab­ri­ca­tion work­shop locat­ed in The Nether­lands. There she can see sam­ples woven in real time and exper­i­ment with a diverse selec­tion of yarns and fibers, includ­ing wool, mohair, silk, cot­ton, and metal­lic filaments.

Sam­ples were then sent to Wolf-Gor­don to make pat­tern selec­tions and trans­late Engelgeer’s eclec­tic mate­ri­als into tex­tiles that would pass the com­mer­cial industry’s dura­bil­i­ty and safe­ty stan­dards. Work­ing with a US-based mill and aim­ing to keep a high per­cent­age of nat­ur­al fibers, three of the pat­terns were con­vert­ed into blends of wool, cot­ton, and poly­ester, woven with nylon warps. The result­ing fab­rics—Mass, Merge, and Points—meet all ACT per­for­mance stan­dards and achieved 100,000 dou­ble rubs on the Wyzen­beek abra­sion test.

Mass makes the bold­est state­ment with its float­ing stone pat­tern — a dra­mat­i­cal­ly mag­ni­fied inter­pre­ta­tion of a ter­raz­zo floor. A more lin­ear approach is seen in Merge, where metal­lic yarns trav­el in S‑curves across the width of the fab­ric. Points is the most domes­ti­cal­ly-influ­enced design, with its dot pat­tern par­tial­ly obscured by an intri­cate veil of fine threads. Togeth­er, the pat­terns make up the MAT­TER col­lec­tion, a depar­ture from the more reserved inter­play of lines and forms seen in Engelgeer’s first col­lab­o­ra­tion with Wolf-Gor­don. This col­lec­tion pro­vides design­ers with a vari­ety of scales, while the lush col­or palette unites the designs with a har­mo­nious, con­tem­po­rary look.

As stat­ed about the MAT­TER col­lec­tion in Metrop­o­lis mag­a­zine, ​“Engel­geer defies con­tract-mar­ket con­ven­tion, not just with her nov­el designs but with con­trast­ing mate­ri­als and tex­tures that betray a fas­ci­na­tion — sel­dom seen in com­mer­cial fab­rics — with tac­til­i­ty, dimen­sion­al­i­ty, and lux­u­ry.” Her con­cep­tu­al strength and ongo­ing exper­i­men­ta­tion in tex­tile design enrich our uphol­stery selec­tion and the over­all vital­i­ty of Wolf-Gor­don as a design force in the com­mer­cial marketplace.