The latest color direction in upholstery covers, as seen through the eyes of four dynamic furniture and interior designers, debuts this summer at high-performance luxury fabric source Toray Ultrasuede America), Inc. (TUA).

Designer’s Choice is a new collection of distinctive hues from the makers of Ultrasuede® featuring signature colors by a distinguished quartet– Stanley Jay Friedman, Rick Lee, Barclay Butera and Vladimir Kagan – which sprang from the fertile mind of one designing woman - Jane Matteson, creative consultant for TUA.

“Upscale manufacturers and interior professionals demand fabrics and colors that are differentiated from the mass market, but they don’t blindly follow fashion either,” says Matteson, who also serves as executive director for the American Society of Furniture Designers. “What they do appreciate is an interpretation of trends by design icons whose work they admire. That is the aim of the new Ultrasuede® program.”

Designer’s Choice by Ultrasuede® translates leading color stories into the right shades suitable for bold furniture statements. At the European shows in Paris and Milan, editors noted a continuing trend to quiet black-and-white or neutral palettes brought to life with intense, shocking shades of blue, fuchsia, turquoise, purple and lime. Color specialist Pantone selected Blue Iris as its color of the year for 2008, calling it a “multifaceted hue reflecting the complexity of the world that surrounds us.” And, marketing and advertising company JWT lists blue among its top 10 trends for 2008, saying “blue is the new green,” reflecting its ability to represent environmental issues.

The Designer’s Choice colors hit all the right notes for current color directions – including a fiery red and orange blend, a rich, saturated turquoise, a hot, playful pink, a cool blue and a deep purple blue – as well as a range of warm grey neutrals.

Designers Unite

Matteson’s background – including her role as the longtime notable merchandiser for contemporary upholstery resource Weiman – makes her well suited to play matchmaker for this unique color program.  In her former post, she worked with Vladimir Kagan and Stanley Jay Friedman. She got to know Rick Lee while developing a fabric pillow program at American Leather, and she has admired Barclay Butera since the advent of his career. The common denominator among them, according to Matteson, is independent thinking.

Each designer’s approach to color is personal. Friedman, for example, believes in the opulence of working with a single color. His color for the inaugural Designer’s Choice collection is an intense iris blue with deep purple overtones and definition. “Clearly a Stanley Jay Friedman statement,” says Matteson.

Lee, whose personal design signature is his thumbprint, has a bent for fully saturated color.  His Ultrasuede® colors, MagentaModern and South Beach (the latter is an intense teal), are bold and graphic reflections of that. “Rick’s style is marvelously sure and clear,” Matteson says, “and at once current and retro.”

Butera’s skills blend the best of Hollywood glamour and a studied elegance. “Barclay has a clear sense of proportion, line and distinctive color that is all his own,” Matteson says. “Barclay Butera Blue has a compelling depth that reflects his classic mixing of modern indulgence and historical context.”

“Vlad, on the other hand, is exuberantly vibrant,” she says. “Kagan Red is Vladimir Kagan personified! Anyone who knows him and has had the great pleasure of working with him knows about his witty red Merrill shoes. He is a personality and design legend who is larger than life and full of joie de vivre.

“Vlad was also my inspiration for the New Neutrals Collection,” Matteson says. “When I met with Vlad and his wonderful artist wife Erica Wilson for dinner to work on Kagan Red, he was wearing an amazing English silk scarf. We shoved the dishes out of the way and began to play with color ideas, and using Vlad’s scarf to spark our imaginations, the three of us worked out our neutral palette right then and there. It’s a wonderful counterpoint to Kagan Red, and has a progression of evocative, workable grey hues – including Elephant, French Grey, Feather and Fog.”

The Ultrasuede® Designer’s Choice collection was developed to speak to everyone across all segments of the home furnishings industry – manufacturers, retailers, designers and consumers – who can recognize and appreciate the remarkable talents of these unique designers.

 

Designer: Vladimir Kagan
Keywords: “mid-century modern”
Color: Kagan Red Ultrasuede®
Background brief: Vladimir Kagan is an avant garde designer known for innovative, sculptural designs and whose career has spanned more than 60 years. Kagan Red for Ultrasuede® is a perfect mix of orange and red.
In his own words: “I love powerful colors and I need them to stand up to the frames I design. Kagan Red is representative of that kind of aesthetic."

Designer: Stanley Jay Friedman
Keywords: “ultimate contemporary”
Color: Stanley and Iris Ultrasuede®
Background brief:Stanley Jay Friedman, originally a contract designer, made his first foray into residential design in 2001 with a line of upholstery, accessories and case goods for Weiman, featuring pure and clean architectural lines. Now a mainstay on the contemporary and modern furniture design scene, Friedman conceived the forward-thinking deep purple-blue called Stanley and Iris Ultrasuede®.
In his own words: “Designers, through programs like Designer's Choice with Ultrasuede®, can change the landscape of American Design.  We, as designers, need to deal strongly with presentation and color selection – it’s what represents us best.” 

Designer: Rick Lee
Keywords: “vibrant and charismatic”
Color: MagentaPink and South Beach Ultrasuede®
Background brief: From a gnarled oak tree to a sleek pocketknife, industrial designer Rick Lee finds inspiration in everyday objects. An innovator at the vanguard of modern design, Lee combines rational thinking with radical influences to create minimalist pieces with deft whimsical touches, incorporating minimal principles of Bauhaus with the irreverence of Studio Alchimia. For Ultrasuede®, Lee created MagentaModern, a thoroughly modern deep pink hue with soft purple highlights, and South Beach, a vibrant teal shade.
In his own words:“California cuisine is an apt metaphor for my work – a mix of seemingly incongruent ingredients carefully combined to create something new and fresh.”

Designer: Barclay Butera
Keywords: “mix of Hollywood glamour and classic”
Color: Barclay Butera Blue Ultrasuede®
Background brief: Uniquely adept at blending furniture styles with layered patterns of fabrics and textures, Barclay Butera is known for his love of iconic mid-20th century Old Hollywood, as well as for mixing influences of American, European and Far East styles to create his transitional, fashion-forward design. Barclay Butera Blue Ultrasuede®, a calm ocean blue, was selected for its ability to work with Butera’s fabric collection for Kravet, which will debut later this year.
In his own words: “At the high end, it’s about filling a niche and creating your own luxury and the consumer interprets the value by how well the fabric fits into that idea.”