Bauhaus | Chromatic reimagined

In comparison to the rest of the world, in New Zealand and Australia we are lucky to live in homes with expansive windows, resulting in a preference for plain draperies or over scaled prints which feel open and more relaxed. Therefore, the first step in reworking Chromatic was to double the scale of the design, exaggerating it to the point of it becoming quite unrecognizable.

The studio looked to mid-century modern design principle of finding visual balance through asymmetry to simplify and modernize the print, resulting in a more relaxed and liveable design. The ground was intentionally not filled with colour, creating a sense of negative space and enabling the blocks of colour to drape in a rhythmic position when hung.

Without negative space, balance is achieved through the size of the motifs and colour combinations while simplified linear shapes are offset by soft curves. Whereas Chromatic featured sprays of surface texture, Bauhaus incorporates organic paint strokes. Creating a lived-in patina with the addition of penciled detailing around the motifs, emphasizing the mark of the maker in the sketch-like quality of the original artwork.

Once the scale and artwork were resolved, our designer’s attention turned towards experimenting with base cloths. Bauhaus was first trialed as an upholstery textile, before our designer’s decided it lent itself more to an artisanal, tumbled linen quality.

As it is essential that individual designs and collections speak to James Dunlop’s wider range, the ground colour incorporates shades from best-selling plain draperies, Kyoto and Laconia Air.

With these coordinating draperies at front of mind, our designers sought to create highly pigmented, organic, earthy colour combinations. Complex enough to read as multi-coloured but balanced enough to feel livable en masse, each of the final four colourways present a palette within themselves.

The level of saturation was vital to the design process, as each colourway includes variations of soft, tonal combinations within the motifs which act as large blocks of colour – each working together due to their muted tones. Basalt, sepia, and pigmented earthen tones are sit alongside desert clay tones and willow, all set in parchment grounds.