Lookbook: VEER Aliki van der Kruijs

VEER by Ali­ki van der Krui­js is Wolf-Gordon’s lat­est col­lab­o­ra­tion with an emerg­ing design­er of impres­sive con­cep­tu­al strength and inde­pen­dent voice. For the design of VEER uphol­stery tex­tiles, van der Krui­js explored two- and three-dimen­sion­al space through a decep­tive­ly sim­ple grid motif, the ori­gins of which began with the designer’s pur­chase of an antique kimono tex­tile in Ari­ta, Japan.

The pat­terns, Float, Turn, and Slide, each fea­ture rein­ter­pre­ta­tions of the kimono grid with var­i­ous dis­tor­tions and imper­fec­tions that add to each design’s beau­ty. The high­ly usable col­or palette, con­sist­ing of blues, reds, browns, olives, golds, and gen­tle neu­trals, was derived from 600+ van der Krui­js pho­tos of weath­ered archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments, which she shot while cycling around Arita.

She explains, ​“The weath­er has a big influ­ence on wood, steel, and con­crete. I observed that the col­ors of these mate­ri­als become soft­er due to the heavy sun­light and oth­er ele­ments, but at the same time the mate­r­i­al became harsh­er, more erod­ed, and sharper.”

Ali­ki van der Krui­js was drawn to the sim­plic­i­ty and two-sided grid pat­tern of a kimono fab­ric she found in Ari­ta, Japan.	Wrap­ping a porce­lain vase with the grid pat­tern revealed over­laps and ​“breaks” in the grid.
The grid applied to a porce­lain stone quar­ried dur­ing her ceram­ics res­i­den­cy in Ari­ta was used for inspiration.	Yarn sam­ples were pro­vid­ed by the mill WG Design Stu­dio chose to weave the col­lec­tion of textiles.
Pho­tos of weath­ered archi­tec­tur­al mate­ri­als van der Krui­js shot while cycling in Ari­ta informed her col­or selection.	Skeins of yarns that matched the hues seen in select pho­tographs were cho­sen to be used through­out the line.