New interior design range launches at Milan fair – inspired by Welsh sheep

A legendary graphic designer has launched a line of upholsteries, rugs, and curtains at the Milan Salone del Mobile funiture fair – inspired by Welsh sheep.

Peter Saville said that his interior designs for the high-end Kvadrat Collection were based on his memories of holidays in the north of Wales.

“I saw the colorful markings on the fleece, and knowing who had made them I was seized by a feeling of intimate nostalgia,” he told AdPro. “But I looked at them with an urban sensibility, thinking to myself, they are like graffiti, rural graffiti.

“What would happen, if those spray markings did not wash off, but ended up in the weaving?”

Kvadrat Collection describes the Technicolour range as a “craft-orientated, sculptural collection by Peter Saville, visually and haptically translates the industrial processes in textile production”.

“The collection’s name relates to the spectrum of colours commonly used to mark flocks of sheep – bold hues that are spectacularly incongruous in pastoral settings. The collection comprises an upholstery textile, two curtains and three rugs,” they said.

“Technicolour reflects that, for many years, Peter Saville has been intrigued by the increasing use of seemingly random colours for the markings of grazing sheep in the landscape. He has likened this to rural graffiti.”

Technicolor es la nueva colaboración entre Kvadrat y el diseñador británico Peter Saville. Inspirado en el “graffiti rural” de la campiña inglesa. La colección contrasta los tonos de lana natural con toques de color inspirados en las marcas con spray que de los rebaños de ovejas pic.twitter.com/asSQSjkraS

— designaholic.mx (@designaholicmx) August 31, 2021

Furniture based on Welsh sheep is somewhat of a departure for Peter Saville, who is best known for his best known for legendary album covers including Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures (1979).

However he said that he was “excited by how the collection brings the industry of the land, in raw form, into the living environment. The collection elements offer an experience of texture and colour, ranging from the expressionistic to the subliminal.”

The end result was a pleasing one for Saville, who said that when he set foot into the room to see his finished designs ” I was catapulted into my childhood.”

However, he admits that he wasn’t a fan of his holidays in the north of Wales at the time. “I hated it.”