Textile, Frost Garden

Japanese fashion designer Akira Minagawa, well-known for his label minä perhonen, has created a textile collection for Danish manufacturer Kvadrat using soft colors and delicate patterns to express a sympathy with the natural landscape. “It is essentially about the coexistence of nature and human life,” Minagawa said of the collection. Over the years the designer has developed a deep admiration for Scandinavian design, especially in the way it draws on and reflects nature.
The collection consists of one solid upholstery, two patterned upholsteries, and one drapery sheer, all suitable for both contract and residential use. The designs are expressed in a variety of techniques, from brushed napped wool to embroidery to woven pattern. Minagawa develops his ideas through drawing, and the techniques are chosen to best express his pen strokes. Frost Garden uses a leno-weave construction to create the shadow of a design which is expressed merely as holes or spaces in the fabric. In this way it relates beautifully to the museum’s collection of lace and drawn work embroidery.

Kvadrat featured the collection at the Salone del Mobille in Milan in 2016 with an installation created by Minagawa and titled Forest Comes Home. The installation was praised for its unique blend of Japanese and Scandinavian sensibilities, a delicate and dreamy yet playful and sophisticated environment of abstract organic forms which showcased the textiles in an unexpected way. The installation was called out in Architectural Digest’s “8 Stunning installations you can’t miss during Salone del Mobile 2016.”

Textile, Frost Garden; Designed by Akira Minagawa (Japanese, b. 1967); 100% trevira cs polyester; H x W: 355.6 × 320 cm (11 ft. 8 in. × 10 ft. 6 in.); Gift of Kvadrat; 2017-19-2