Larsen

Larsen was founded in New York in 1952 by Jack Lenor Larsen, one of the most significant textile designers of the twentieth century. His starting point was the material rather than the pattern: how a fibre behaves, how a woven structure catches the light, how a surface feels under the hand. That same year he won the commission to design the curtains for Lever House, New York's first office building in the International Style — the hand-woven surface against the building's cool modernism became the starting point for a career that would span fifty years.

That approach still defines the house today, with operations in New York and Paris. Woven structures and natural fibres take centre stage, and the pattern more often emerges from the weave than from the print. This gives fabrics with a tactile presence and a colour palette that tends towards the muted and earthy — qualities that age well and rarely feel tied to a particular season.

Brittfurn's range includes Larsen fabrics for those seeking texture rather than pattern. The qualities work as upholstery fabric on sofas and armchairs where the surface is meant to be felt, and as curtain fabric where the depth of the weave comes through against the light. They work particularly well with natural materials — oak, linen, wool — and with rooms that already have calm walls.

Textured weaves only reveal themselves in interplay with light and form. In the fabric visualisation you can see how a Larsen fabric follows the shape of a piece of furniture and how the texture changes across curved surfaces. The wallpaper visualisation shows at the same time how a calm wall can lift the depth of the weave. If you would like to feel the qualities by hand or compare several textures side by side, our showroom in Östermalm, Stockholm, is there for you.