Stacy Kendall Courtesy Lori Weitzner

Related Articles

• Designing with the Stars
• Cultivating Culinary Art
• Lori Weitzner
• A Decade of Design
• Green Grows

Because she’s associated with names such as Calvin Klein, Estée Lauder and Saks Fifth Avenue, one would think that New York City-based designer Lori Weitzner creates haute couture for the fashion elite. In a way she does, but instead of designing wardrobes, she designs everything from bedding to cosmetics packaging. The award-winning designer has created collections for Endless Knot Rug Company, tableware for Rosenthal and even interiors for Lufthansa airlines.

Despite the diversity of products she designs, Weitzner says her heart lies with fabric design. Fabric, wall coverings and passementerie (ornamental edging or trimming) are the areas in which Weitzner’s extraordinary creativity is fully expressed. Drawing her inspiration from nature, historical periods and her travels around the world, Weitzner achieves a natural-yet-contemporary effect by pairing raw textures with shimmering finishes on her wall coverings.

Favorite materials such as handmade paper, various fabrics and even fiber from banana leaves comprise the base of the designs, often finished with patterns in metallic paint. Oracle, an award-winning design for Bergamo Fabrics, is made of handmade paper from South American tree bark; one side is cinnamon-colored wood pulp, but turn it over and the entire surface is hand-gilded in silver, gold or bronze color. It’s through this tension between the organic nature of the material and the dramatic effect of lustrous finishes that Weitzner achieves her unique look.

This month, she shares her design philosophies and inspirations at Seattle Design Center’s Nordex 2008, March 15–18. First, however, she spoke with SH&L about her work and what she finds appealing about the Northwest.

When you collaborated with Seattle native and well-known textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen, were you inspired by the Northwest’s aesthetic?
Yes, the quality of the light is unique and incomparable in the Northwest. Color looks different reflected in nature out here.

What kind of images do you conjure up when you think of the Northwest?
I think of rhythmic patterns of nature like the mountain ridges, coastlines and beaches. I feel the color of the earth and sky in all its complexities. It is a kind of gentle humming that pervades; calming and soothing, yet inspiring.

What kind of colors and textures do you see working best in Seattle?
The colors of nature: gemstones, light on water, light on sky and light on earth. It is a quiet magnitude—clear but neutralized ever so slightly.

What colors and themes are inspiring you right now?
Earthen metals, music, jewelry, ancient armor and artifacts.
 
How much does innovation play a part in each new design?
As much as possible. We always try to take something old, treasured and familiar and recreate it in a new way through the use of new material, new color play or a new technique.
 
Jewelry for the home seems to be a large theme throughout your work. How did that concept come about for you? Where can people best implement that kind of “jewelry?”
It’s all in the detail of things. Jewelry for the home means accessories that seem to finish environments. Jewelry itself is fascinating to me because the techniques used throughout history are inspiration to what we are creating now, whether it be for wall covering, textile or passementerie.

One of your fabrics was one of the first with the Green-e logo. Has environmental conservation continued to interest you, and how do you incorporate it into your designs?
Absolutely, but my position is that “green” is neither black nor white, but gray. There is no perfect environmental product—it is a very subjective issue. We make choices and do the best we can. Therefore, we try to balance equally environmental consciousness, aesthetics and performance.

If your work could only be described in one way, what would you like it to be?
I would love my work to be described as ‘able to touch people emotionally,’ because that is what is truly important. As Saint-Exupery wrote in The Little Prince, the most important thing is what is felt, not what is seen.

Lori Weitzner's wallcoverings and rugs are carried at the Seattle Design Center through Kelly Forslund, Inc., Seattle Design Center, Ste. P-158, (206) 762-6076 and Endless Knot, available through Studio G11, Seattle Design Center, Ste. P-366, (206) 973-4473.