Repeat Offenders by Ghislaine Vinas

New York, NY — Novem­ber 10, 2019 | REPEAT OFFEND­ERS by Ghis­laine Viñas will expand Wolf-Gordon’s con­tract wall­cov­er­ing col­lec­tion with bold pat­terns that riff on the past by pre­sent­ing a tongue-in-cheek twist on col­ors, scales, and forms found in retro designs from the company’s own archives. The three designs — Hold­ing Pat­tern, Tan­gled Up, and Vicious Cir­cle — give a cheeky nod to the cycli­cal nature of inno­va­tion, and break­ing through bad habits formed along the way.

This col­lab­o­ra­tive col­lec­tion, led by Ghislaine’s bold per­spec­tive, cel­e­brates Wolf-Gordon’s last­ing influ­ence on pat­tern­ing for inte­ri­or fin­ish­es by reimag­in­ing ele­ments from our archive. We have kept our library of cat­a­logs intact since 1967 and are delight­ed that Ghis­laine has tak­en advan­tage of it with such excit­ing results.

- Mary­beth Shaw, Chief Cre­ative Offi­cer, Mar­ket­ing & Design

Viñas hit on the name for the col­lec­tion after perus­ing Wolf-Gordon’s metic­u­lous and exten­sive archives to find dis­con­tin­ued prints and col­or­ways that she want­ed to make into ​“repeat offend­ers”, a humor­ous spin on their mod­ern­ized reap­pear­ance. Wolf-Gordon’s rich his­to­ry in wall­cov­er­ing design first sparked Viñas’ inter­est in a col­lab­o­ra­tion, along­side an explo­ration of vin­tage fash­ion and beau­ty trends from the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Viñas aimed to cre­ate a fresh take on the company’s sta­ples by ele­vat­ing or com­bin­ing ele­ments of dat­ed stripes, dots, and repeat­ing geo­met­rics to achieve an upbeat, struc­tur­al bold­ness. By sub­tly manip­u­lat­ing details, such as the uni­for­mi­ty of lines or con­ven­tion­al scale, the design­er broke with pre­con­ceived expec­ta­tions and rein­vent­ed clas­sic motifs. 

Delv­ing into Wolf-Gordon’s archives was both fun and illu­mi­nat­ing! Pulling motifs I want­ed to evolve or com­bine, and work­ing with Wolf-Gordon’s design team to give them a new life, pushed the col­lec­tion to the next level.

-Ghis­laine Viñas, Designer

The col­lec­tion fea­tures col­ors that are inte­gral to Viñas’ design aes­thet­ic, includ­ing favorites such as greens, blues, and reds. The metal­lic hints cre­at­ed by the use of Mylar, a mate­r­i­al new to Viñas, lend them­selves to luxe inte­ri­ors where a range of vin­tage-inspired col­ors and sophis­ti­cat­ed neu­trals will stand out.

Pat­tern Highlights

Hold­ing Pat­tern: Mim­ic­k­ing the idea of being stuck in a behav­ioral loop, Hold­ing Pat­tern fea­tures a series of shapes with shift­ing tones that are bisect­ed by lin­ear ele­ments. The col­or cus­tomiza­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less in this dig­i­tal print. 

Tan­gled Up: A ver­ti­cal­ly focused, rotogravure-print­ed design, Tan­gled Up has lines that rip­ple and tan­gle in a play­ful trib­ute to get­ting in trou­ble. This min­i­mal­ist ode to stripes hon­ors this sta­ple that has been in the Wolf-Gor­don archive for decades.

Vicious Cir­cle: Con­cen­tric cir­cles are inter­sect­ed by bold lines in this dynam­ic pat­tern, anoth­er rotogravure wall­cov­er­ing. Like the name implies, Vicious Cir­cle cre­ates a rela­tion­ship between the cir­cu­lar and lin­ear that draws the eye back and forth. The pat­tern is avail­able in a retro-inspired green along with many sophis­ti­cat­ed tone-on-tone colorways.

Repeat Offend­ers was pre­viewed at Bou­tique Design New York 2019.