New York designer Aimée Wilder explores Eudaimonia, a Greek word commonly translated as happiness or “human flourishing,” in her collection of wallpapers, fabrics, rug and accessories. From the effects of the moon on the evolution of the natural world to the impact of astrological phenomenon, Wilder captures the many ways surroundings can influence our psychological state, and contribute to overall wellness.
“This collection was born through finding balance and stability in my own life,” says Wilder. “Once I learned that living to work instead of working to live, along with incorporating methods like Vedic meditation and natural healing into my daily routine, was able to create a peaceful environment around me, I hoped to thoughtfully reflect that feeling in each design.”
Eudaimonia consists of two wallpaper and fabric patterns, Pyramide du Soleil and Earthlight, with an additional rug pattern, Eclipse. All three patterns reflect the natural balance between the Earth, the Sun, and the Moon, evoking the beauty of cosmic balance. With this collection, Wilder introduces a new construction for commercial fabrics, tested for 50,000 double rubs and available with a range of protective coatings including anti-microbial and stain coating. In addition, for the first time, Wilder will offer wallpaper printed in Brooklyn, New York, where she resides and operates her design studio.
Pyramide du Soleil is a subtly optical pattern manifesting the ancient Sun’s shadow and its balance with the earth, Pyramide du Soleil features pyramid and Sun as they represent the illusive quality of time. It integrates pyramids and circles with sophisticated diagonals and horizontal stripes, inspired by the continuous synchronicity that exists between the earth and the Moon.
Earthlight focuses on the waxing and waning cycles of the Moon’s phases in an eye-catching, geometric pattern across wallpaper and fabric design. Named for the scientific phenomenon in which sunlight reflected from Earth’s surface indirectly illuminates the otherwise dark side of the Moon, Earthlight is sure to brighten any space.
Eclipse showcases the inversion of colors in this rug design suggests the effects of an Eclipse, a harbinger of change in the daily life that acts as a guiding hand when questioning one’s path. With a boldness that invokes a new take on a vintage aesthetic, the Eclipse rug comes in a range of warm tones that will add a welcoming touch to a room.
Pyramide du Soleil
Photos courtesy Aimee Wilder.
Eclipse
Photo by ©Dylan Chandler 2018.
Earthlight
Photos courtesy Aimee Wilder.
Building on the success of some of its best-selling designs, while crafting soon-to-be favorites, HBF Textiles’s latest introduction of the Spring 2019 Collection is a double-take on its own history as it looks forward.
Featuring six fabrics, including two reissues of popular brand classics, the brand looked to the individual patterns present within fibers to craft a tactile, visual collection. Unique weave constructions are utilized with matelassé, knotted cord floats, waffle weaves, and a well-worn saddle leather, making Spring 2019 a multi-dimensional line that closes the gap between new and old, classic and original.
“Our Spring 2019 collection is a reimagined look at HBF Textiles’ history and where we’re headed,” explains Mary Jo Miller, HBF Textiles VP of Design & Creative Direction. “The line combines some of our most memorable textiles with modern, distinct designs to create something entirely new. Spring 2019 looks boldly ahead while still managing to feel timeless, classic, and thoughtful.”
Two updated classics, Honest and Moving Forward, prove their enduring design with modifications and additions that embrace their roots.
Moving Forward
First launched as “Moving Blanket” by Elodie Blanchard for HBF Textiles in 2014, the renamed textile Moving Forward was inspired by the beauty of a moving blanket draped over a piece of furniture, translated into upholstery. The 2019 version offers neon fill yarns for an added pop of color and original look.
This textile takes the original artwork from Elodie Blanchard’s ‘Moving Blanket’ and propels it into a vibrant, new direction with neon weft yarns peeking through the matelassé pockets. The fabric comes in nine dynamic iridescent hues with a stain resistant finish.
Honest
For Honest, first released with Christiane Müller in 2016, a fresh range of modern, heathered colors add depth to this timeless pattern and expand on its initial design. Woven at a family owned mill in Italy, Honest features a hybrid of fibers that when blended look and feel like a soft wool blanket. It’s featured in eight heathered combinations, as well as the original 10, for a total of 18 colors that impart depth and clarity.
The Honest color family is also growing! New exciting shades from Christiane Müller are expanding this simple and beautiful solid texture.
The four new additions to the HBF Textiles family — Grateful Grid, Wild West, Caddy Corner, and Vault Lights — bring liveliness and diversity to the collection through bold grids, distressed leather, small-scale angles, and geometric patterns.
Grateful Grid
Crafted at an intimate mill in Germany where chenille is the dominant fiber type, it’s easy to feel grateful for this bold grid weave comprised of soft chenille yarns.
Grateful Grid is a waffle weave structure which allows air to flow and sound to be captured. The six vibrant shades are named for the first word in a variety of Grateful Dead song titles.
Caddy Corner
Kitty Corner, Catty Corner, Cattywampus — whatever works for you on the diagonal.
Caddy Corner is the odder spelling and takes it cue from small scale 45-degree angles. The eight multi-hued fabrics all showcase playful colors, while remaining composed of 58.5 percent post-consumer recycled polyester — one of the brand’s most sustainable fabrics.
Wild West
Wild West’s distressed leather features a scratch-resistant surface with a matte finish, like a well-worn pair of cowgirl boots. The finish allows it to be specified for high traffic areas, while showing off a chic, marbled, crackled appearance. There are six complex shades, each named for a famous cowgirl from early western classics.
Vault Lights
Vault Lights was inspired by the geometric refraction of skylights with their bumpy quality and jewel-toned hues. Woven in Germany, the textiles come in eight luminous colors that represent the look and dimension of light prisms through glass.
Images courtesy HBF Textiles.
Flowers and botanicals are often viewed as a feminine concept or aesthetic, typically in design or art. Rather then let these concepts define them, female artists in history embraced the idea and contributed some of the greatest examples of botanical art, examples that are according to Marika Meyer, owner/founder of Marika Meyer Interiors and Marika Meyer Textiles, “detailed and accurate, but also beautiful and captivating.” Meyer’s appreciation for these women sparked an interest in botanical art, and then further a collection of fabric called the Flora Collection dedicated to artists in the field.
“The more I explored the history of the botanical art form, the more I learned about the role women played in the field,” Meyer says. “I felt it was important to honor both their contribution to this genre and their amazing artistry in [a] collection.” Meyer then decided, after having already designed collections inspired by her love of antiquities, to challenge herself creatively and to explore another path in textiles.
The collection is composed of three patterns, Matilda, Lilian and Beatrix, after famous female artists. Matilda Smith was a prolific illustrator in the late 19th/early 20th century that created bold, ambitious pieces that reflected her resilience to the craft, as she made some of the largest botanical works of her time.
“Lilian Snelling has been referred to as the most important British botanical artist of the first half of the 20th century,” she notes. “She completed more than 600 works in her career beginning at the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens and later with Kew Gardens.” And while many people don’t realize that in addition to being the author of some of the most beloved children’s stories, Beatrix Potter was also an accomplished artist and illustrator. “Her illustrations were just as whimsical and enchanting. That is why a petite floral seemed the perfect fit,” Meyer says.
Matilda
Lilian
Beatrix
The work that went into the collection came from a passionate, artistic state of mind, as Meyer says she began by free hand sketching designs, leading her eventually the idea of botanical prints because of their universal beauty that transcends time.
“All of my designs are rooted in the elements of art and culture that persist throughout time,” Meyers notes, including the style/design trends of today that inspired warm colors and tones like yellow ochre, warm charcoal brown and steel green.
Ultimately, Meyer says her goal is to always to create designs that can be the foundation for any space. “As an interior designer, fabric is my starting point in any scheme. I often ask myself questions in the design process, ‘Would I use this fabric?’ ‘How would I use it?’ Any of the designs in this collection should be strong enough to act as the jumping off point for a room.” The patterns in this collection are definitely strong options that also offer an interpretation of these artists’ personality, style and significance.
Photos by Angie Seckinger