MILAN — Home textiles and wall coverings company Schumacher, which was founded in New York by Parisian Frederic Schumacher in 1880, has been a pioneer in collaborations from the dawn of modern fashion.
Its first fashion tie up was with French fashion designer Paul Poiret in 1930, and in 1958 it produced a collection of prints with visionary designer Elsa Schiaparelli.
On Monday, the American firm will release a collaboration with the lifestyle brand founded by Colombian designer Johanna Ortiz, a collection of fabrics, wall coverings and trims that reflect her eclectic runway fashions and South American spirit.
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“As soon as we met Johanna and her team, we knew it would be a wonderful collaboration,” Schumacher’s creative director Dara Caponigro told WWD ahead of the launch. “Johanna has an uncanny way with pattern and color, creating vibrant but livable designs in the most sophisticated hues. Her elegant joie de vivre comes through in every product and can work in so many environments around the world.”
The collection is comprised of four wall coverings, six fabrics and one tasseled trim, unified by Ortiz’s signature motif: the palm tree. The line aims to weave in her culture and pay homage to her home country’s biodiversity and heritage. Her tropical roots are underscored further by the incorporation of a wide range of natural materials, including linen, sisal and raffia.
Among the collection’s highlights are: the hand-drawn Amazonas Mystique; A Palm Is a Palm (a nod to novelist and poet Gertrude Stein); Andean Tribute Embroidery, which references Colombian landscapes and cultural tapestries, and Tayrona Palm Mosaic, an exploration of the ancient technique of creating images with dots. Tropical Safari combines traditional French toile de Jouy motifs from African wax prints, depicting lush forests and palm leaves from the Orinoco River, and Weaved Basketry celebrating Colombian basket-weaving techniques.
“Every day, I look out my window and see the palm tree standing proudly as my eternal muse,” Ortiz said. “Its forms and beauty embody my home’s spirit and essence, and its soulful presence has inspired this collaboration with Schumacher, translating whispers of tropical paradises into a line of wallpapers and fabrics.”
Over the years, Schumacher has also partnered with fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, Austrian artist and architect Josef Frank and even worked on a small collection with Karl Lagerfeld in the ’80s under its Waverly brand, as well as with fashion brands Libertine and Victor Glemaud. The latter incorporated these designs in their runway shows. “This really cemented the connection between fashion and home,” Caponigro pointed out.
With an eye on the future, the firm said it is on the look out for designers who have a passion for the home, and whose aesthetic translates to interiors. “Those who have knowledge of decorating. It’s important for our collaborators to envision how their products will be used in a room,” Caponigro added.