The mild colours of Scandinavian summertime inspire the limited edition S/S19 collection from Bang & Olufsen, available from today. Featuring over-ear wireless headphones, active earphones, and a portable speaker, the collection also offers headphone accessories in Ria fabric by Kvadrat/Raf Simons.
The fabric – part of an ongoing collaboration between the Danish textile expert and Belgian designer – covers hand-held headphone pouches, and is typified by its mottled blending of colours, inspired by pointillism: an apropos reference, considering Bang & Olufsen’s famously dotty speaker meshes (pictured top left). The Ria fabric unites three tones of yarn: a thin, single-toned thread base, through which two colours of thicker yarn are woven, to create a subtle graining across the surface.
As with pointillism, Ria’s fragmented colours create a pleasing modulating effect, emulating the exploration of three-dimensional textures found across Kvadrat/Raf Simons collections. There’s a certain roughness to Ria, that contrasts with the smoothness of the lambskin headphone covers.
Easy on the ears, each headphone in the collection is typically soft and comfortable, reflected in the new colourways, which are equally easy on the eye. They’re also proudly Nordic. Clay – a deep, earthy tone, is inspired by chalky cliffs found across Scandinavia; a vegetal Pine colour evokes the forest, while Sky has a cool sense of breezy summer afternoons. §
