Fashion designer Raf Simons has created two upholstery fabrics, Helia and Silas, for Danish textile company Kvadrat.
For both fabrics, created as part of ongoing collaboration with Kvadrat, Simons aimed to create unusual textures from natural materials including linen, wool and viscose.
Helia, which is made mainly from new wool, with added acrylic, viscose and nylon, has been constructed to resemble the texture and structure of astrakhan, a type of fur taken from fetal or newborn lambs.
The soft, voluminous Silas fabric, made from new wool and nylon, is created through a complex finishing process.
The fabric has a velvet-like texture that is repeatedly unravelled and beaten, which makes it swell and resume its shape, and then steam-treated.
