Kvadrat’s new ‘holy grail’ product by Peter Saville is inspired by spray-painted sheep

‘With “Technicolour” we believe we have found our Holy Grail product,’ said Anders Byriel CEO of Danish textile company, Kvadrat. This statement came from inside Wooltex, a discreet textile mill located in Huddersfield in the north of England, also providing us with shelter from the unpredictable summer showers. It is the somewhat guaranteed rainfall that makes England a great location for textile mills, a key part of the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. The moisture, I am told, lends itself to the manufacture of a very soft fabric.

It is in this mill where Kvadrat’s latest collaboration with designer Peter Saville – building on a 2021 project of the same name that comprised an upholstery textile and curtains – is manufactured. The new ‘Technicolour’ collection, an upholstery textile available in 30 colourways, continues the celebration of British heritage, wool, and local craftsmanship – and contains no manmade fibres.

Kvadrat and Peter Saville’s new ‘Technicolour’

The idea behind the latest collaboration was rather simple, according to Saville. Staying at a childhood friend’s farm in north Wales in the early 2000s allowed him a moment of retrospection during which he noticed the sheep scurry across the fields in a rainbow-hued flurry. The spray-painted markings on their coats, an almost hieroglyphic code between farmers, caught Saville’s eye.

‘I wondered how a textile would look if these random filaments of colour ended up in production,’ he told Wallpaper*. ‘I wanted to add more charisma and excitement around Kvadrat. I loved the idea of the juxtaposition between these urban graffiti-like markings against the rural backdrop of the countryside.

‘This idea trickled down into “How would these colours look on a sofa”?’ Initially, Saville imagined an off-white sofa with painterly dashes on it. The final result of the contemporary collection was a pleasant surprise. ‘The sheep are pretty pop, they have a lot of graffiti going on, they're very cool. It is genius, actually.’

The textile was made in a new yarn-spinning facility at Wooltex (which is co-owned by Kvadrat). Ten base colours, from which the full array of 30 colourways derives, include five bold hues used for livestock-marking: orange, blue, green, yellow and magenta – with a pleasing link to some of the colours used in printing, notes Saville. These are accompanied by five neutrals: black, brown, a light and a dark beige, and undyed wool, a friendly ode to the sheep's naturally coat. The colours can be mixed and matched to create a vibrant weave.

‘There are a few places that make you reflect on how far you’ve come, and for me Wales allows me to do that. I used to play there as a ten-year-old and suddenly I'm 50. And it made me think, “Wow, life is really weird”,’ said the co-founder of Factory Records. ‘Sometimes you have to go away to realise what you've got. North Wales and Snowdonia, at least geographically, are really amazing, although when I was younger I did think it was quite limited, whereas Malibu is horrible.’

Saville, who co-founded Factory Records in 1978 and is best known for the record sleeves he created for Joy Division and New Order between 1979 and 1993, said he would love to have a sofa made with the new textiles, and a 'Technicolour' suit is definitely on the cards.

kvadrat.dk