Creative minds travel to Milan Design Week not just to showcase their products, but also to get inspired or discover new collaborators for innovative projects. Among them there is also Belgian visual artist Alexia de Ville.
After her education in Fine Arts and a few years spent in London developing patterns for clothes and accessories, Alexia launched in 2014 a wallpaper company.
Tenue de Ville is not your average wallpaper brand, though, since Alexia has a Haute Couture approach to it: she mainly designs by hand her patterns, textures and motifs in her Brussels-based workshop and gets the products manufactured in a Belgian factory that respects the highest sustainability standards.
Her latest collection of wallpapers, entitled "Saudade", is a dream of abstractions inspired by childhood memories and by Alexia's travels to the East and to Japan in particular.
Colorful spray-can landscapes are juxtaposed to marbled textures and mineral effects; Japanese graphics and Art Deco nuances combine together, while metallic shades shine through splashes of soft pinks, bluish greens and bright tones.
Alexia's rhythms are more similar to an artist's or a Haute Couture atelier's: she produces one collection a year, but her workshop is a laboratory of ideas.
She develops indeed patterns also for fashion designers and works with other creative minds: her latest collaboration is the lookbook for the "Saudade" collection, shot by fashion photographer Laetitia Bica who added to the wallpapers a surrealist touch.
What prompted you to launch Tenue de Ville?
Alexia de Ville: I have an artistic background and studied Fine Arts in school. Then I went to London to study for a year and began doing patterns by hand. I started the brand applying my graphics onto T-shirts and dresses. "Tenue de Ville" in French indicates a sort of casual-smart dress code and that mood informed my designs. I did that for about four years and then I extended my patterns also to stationery, wallpapers and fabrics for interior design. A wallpaper printing factory owner spotted me and asked me if I wanted to start a brand with him and that's how I refocused on wallpapers.
How does the creative process behind the wallpapers work for you?
Alexia de Ville: I love to use my artistic background, so I usually start from drawing with felts-tips, coloured pencils and inks. Besides, I take a lot of images and photographs, and I also collect images through Pinterest. I love to travel and, when I do it, I take a lot of pictures and put them all together in moodboards to create a kind of atmosphere for a collection. At the same time I do a lot of research with painting, watercolour, drawing, collages and all sorts of printing techniques. Then I start scanning my work as of course you have to pass through the digital approach to create the repeated patterns. I really like the rhythm of this process and I think this is what defines my brand as well as I always try to give an artistic gesture to the wallpapers.
Where does the Japanese inspiration for your new collection, entitled "Saudade", come from?
Alexia de Ville: I think there has always been a kind of Japanese influence in my collection, but this time it is more clear because we used the Shibori techniques for some of the wallpapers. Two years ago in Summer we did a lot of Shibori experiments and I reused some of them in this collection; I also included a copyright free pattern from a kimono and a cherry blossom tree, even though that has a connection with paintings by Van Gogh and shows how Japan always influenced central Europe. Last but not least, I went to Japan two years ago, so I took a lot of pictures. Maybe that's another reason why this influence can be seen so clearly in the new collection!
There is a lot of talk in design at the moment about sustainability, and your products are manufactured following eco-friendly principles, can you tell us more about this aspect of your production?
Alexia de Ville: We produce in Belgium in a factory that has been going for 50 years. Even though this is an industrial space with big machines that can manufacture hundreds of metres of paper, they do have an artisanal approach. For example, you always have two people there who are colourists, so, if we say we want a little bit more of blue, they add a spoon of blue in the paint and so on. This is a very interesting aspect of the production that I didn't know at all as I came from a Fine Art background and I find this really intriguing. We also use a FSC certified paper to ensure sustainable forest management, so all the trees cut to make our products are then replanted; besides, all the inks we use are water-based and they are not as polluting as other dyes.
Going back to the more artistic aspects of your work, how did the collaboration with Laetitia Bica happen?
Alexia de Ville: I noticed Laetitia's work in Milan last year. There was an exhibition of Belgian designers and I went to the opening. The postcards advertising each Belgian artist were really cool: they showed a portrait by Laetitia of the designer with the object they had created, but it was well done and the object was the real protagonist. I thought it was a very clever way to present the work and I kept the postcards. When it came to finding a photographer for my new collection, I immediately thought about Laetitia. She is not only a photographer but an artistic director. She really understood that I wanted to have a collaboration with her and I wanted to show my product, while giving her some space to show her interpretation of my work. We already know we will collaborate together for the next collection.
So far you have worked with artists and interior design companies, but your prints and patterns could adapt to garments as well: would you ever work with a fashion house?
Alexia de Ville: We have sold two patterns to the girls behind Belgian brand Wavelength. They are actually architects and they produce one small collection of clothes a year collaborating with a pattern designer or an artist. As I said I love the creative process behind my work, so seeing my patterns applied to textiles is always exciting. At the moment we are focusing on wallpapers, but we are expanding a bit and we started an e-shop where we sell limited edition stationery, posters and cushions.
Is this the first time you go to Milan Design Week and what do you expect from it?
Alexia de Ville: We went last year as well and I was very impressed. Everywhere I go I feel like I'm seeing the same objects and type of sets and settings, but Milan Design Week is different. Maybe it is because they have all those wonderful locations and palazzos, but the way they install things is modern and contemporary and I think the event is the best I have ever seen when it comes to design and it is definitely not to be missed.
Image credits for this post
Photography Laetitia Bica / Courtesy of Tenue de Ville
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