(r)evolutionary pleats

An explosion of color

The room divider is built as a single standing textile. Its’ carefully selected color surface captivates the eye. The color combinations interact with one’s perception and evoke a sense of movement. Vibrant optical illusions appear soft and domestic, yet shimmery as the facets of a gem. The magical effect is a result of a thorough color research on pleated surfaces and made with structural textile pleating. This freshly developed technique allows to create tall self-supporting textile bodies without the need of other elements.

Reducing the environmental impact of textiles

For centuries, soft textile has been the defining material to add warmth, comfort and lightness to a space. But until this day, textile remains a labour and resource intensive material with a short use cycle. It is often assembled in products in ways that make it difficult to be recycled. In '(r)evolutionary pleats' Fenna van der Klei looks at old textile techniques. She acquires useful knowledge from them and combines it with new production methods in order to develop design solutions with a low carbon footprint, that accelerate the circular economy. The exhibited room divider is proof of this ethos and showcases a wide range of innovations.

A pan-european collaboration

This project has been fruit of an ongoing collaboration between Fenna van der Klei and Fundació Eurecat, a textile technology center based in Barcelona (Spain) and has been made possible by the generous support of the Creative Industries Fund Netherlands, Stichting Stokroos as well as the European WORTH Partnership Projects Fund.