KnollTextiles Launches The Signature Collection

New York, NY – KnollTextiles was founded in 1947 by Florence Knoll who began an enduring legacy of innovation with her unexpected adaptation of simple menswear fabric for furniture application. With this bold move, she forever changed the language of modern textiles.

Over the last seven decades the name KnollTextiles has become synonymous with pioneering design. To honor the 70th anniversary and Florence Knoll’s founding vision, Creative Director Dorothy Cosonas delved into the archives, searching for classic textural solid textiles that might be adapted for today’s market. Commenting on the design process Dorothy says, “My team and I studied multiple archives and worked with various mills to reinterpret the colors, structure and materials of these textiles. Our 70th anniversary was a great opportunity to revisit and reinvigorate product from past decades adding even more choice of KnollTextiles for today’s specifier.”

The Signature Collection includes upholstery fabrics Alter Ego, Feeling Plaid and Little Devil. These three patterns are based on multiple archives dating back to 1947.  In addition, Vibe II polyurethane upholstery was launched with a fresh palette and enhanced performance attributes, while ten new colors were added to the popular upholstery/panel fabric Crossroad. KnollTextiles continues to build the 24/7 line of made in the USA high performance woven polyethylene wallcoverings with the launch of Archer II and Alloy.

Alter Ego is based on multiple archives including a 1947 textural solid designed by Toni Prestini, Suzanne Huguenin’s Knoll Nylon Homespun (1965) and Executive Tweed (1968). From sheep to loom, Alter Ego is 100% American wool upholstery. An artisanal process blends up to 6 unique colors of wool fiber to create the multidimensional and heathered yarns used in the upholstery. A final finishing process creates a soft luster and hand.  Alter Ego is offered in 20 colors!

Content: 96% Wool, 4% Nylon          
Width: 52”      
Abrasion: 70,000 Cycles Martindale
Finish: Soil & Stain Repellent
Colors: 20

Feeling Plaid is inspired by archival fabrics Bourette (1973) and Accord (1984). This is a fun and chic large-scale full repeat pattern. The dynamic mixture of colors in Feeling Plaid is achieved with a custom loom set up where 5 colors of wool and 5 colors of rayon are used in both the warp and weft directions. The split of rayon and wool create a beautiful balance of matte (wool) and luster (rayon) in the upholstery.

Content: 55% Rayon, 42% Wool, 3% Nylon                       
Width: 53”
Abrasion: 40,000 Double Rubs Wyzenbeek
Finish: Soil & Stain Repellent
Colors: 4

Little Devil is an interpretation of Marianne Strengell’s 1951 upholstery Devil. This allover texture has a super soft hand created by using boucle and chenille in the warp and weft directions. The pallet has been brought up to date with 12 clean clear colors.

Content: 84% Polyester, 14% Acrylic, 2% Viscose
Width: 54”
Abrasion: 80,000 Double Rubs Wyzenbeek
Finish: Soil & Stain Repellent
Colors: 12

Vibe II offers the same beauty as the original Vibe polyurethane upholstery plus enhanced performance attributes.  Vibe II is bleach cleanable, finished to be ink and denim dye resistant and passes 7-week hydrolysis. We kept the most popular colors of Vibe and added new colors to refresh the palette for Vibe II. As a bonus, we made Vibe II less expensive than the original.

Content: 67% Polyester, 33% Polyurethane
Width: 54”
Abrasion: 100,000+ Double Rubs Wyzenbeek
Finish: Ink and Denim Dye Resistant
Colors: 17

Crossroad now has 10 additional color choices for a grand total of 24!  This popular upholstery/ panel fabric has a unique weave structure that gives it a dry hand with a rich wool look at only $24/yard.

Content: 43% Polyester, 37% Post Industrial Recycled Polyester, 20% Post-Consumer Recycled Polyester
Width: 54”
Abrasion: 95,000 Double Rubs Wyzenbeek         
Finish: Soil and Stain repellent
Colors: 10 new - 24 total

Archer II and Alloy are domestically manufactured high performance woven polyethylene wallcoverings. As part of the 24/7 line, they are PVC free, durable, bleach cleanable and competitively priced.  

Archer II is a direct glue wallcovering with vertical stripes plus texture.

Content: 100% Polyethylene
Width: 54”
Colors: 7

Alloy is a new and unique 24/7 pattern for direct glue or wrapped panel application. It has all the performance and cleanability attributes of other 24/7 products with an added hint of sparkle from a metallic polyester yarn. The sparkle yarn is exclusive from the mill to KnollTextiles.

Content: 73% Polyethylene, 27% Polyester
Width: 54”
Colors: 7

About KnollTextiles

KnollTextiles is currently under the creative direction of Dorothy Cosonas, who combines clean, clear color with modern, elegant patterns and textures. In 2005 Cosonas was named the 11th Creative Director of KnollTextiles. Her inaugural collection won a Best of NeoCon Gold award – her first of 7 along with 6 Silver awards for Knoll. In 2008 she founded Knoll Luxe as the fashion forward luxury component of KnollTextiles where she has contributed her own work along with collaborating fashion designers such as Proenza Schouler, Rodarte and Maria Cornejo. Her work was a major part of KnollTextiles 2011 retrospective exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center and has been accepted into the permanent collection of Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian National Design Museum. Most recently, Cosonas received the 2016 IIDA Titan Award. Founded by Florence Knoll in 1947, KnollTextiles is a division of Knoll, Inc., and maintains a marketing and design studio at 1330 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019. 

Media Contact:
Caroline Ollivier
[email protected]
212-343-4117