What’s the inspiration behind the new collection?
James Dunlop’s Homestead collection is inspired by our deep connection to the environment, pulling reference from New Zealand’s breathtaking coastal vistas and rugged alpine topography via texture and custom colors. Textiles in mineral tones and earthen hues convey the essence of New Zealand through the colors of lush fjords, snowcapped mountains and rolling hillsides.

What was the starting point for this collection?
We wanted to pay homage to the historic homesteads of high country stations whilst looking toward the architectural homes now nestled into these landscapes. Our transitional textiles focus on tactility and dimension to complement the view, in a sophisticated yet casual reflection of how we live in this part of the world.

What piece are you most excited to unveil?
Kumo Recycled presents a modern perspective on fiber construction. It is an Oeko-Tex 100 certified wide-width sheer drapery, woven using recycled post-consumer PET plastic bottles and piece-dyed to deliver our custom color palette, which references our Australasian flora and fauna. Finished to create a handle emulating soft cotton with a delicate, slubby weave, Kumo Recycled is a high-performance sheer that will elegantly frame the view within any residential or commercial space.

How do you feel this collection pushes the brand forward?
Along our journey to creating a more sustainable future, we are working hard to incorporate more innovative, sustainable textiles into James Dunlop’s product offering. The technical advancement of recycled yarn production has led to textiles that not only are more environmentally friendly but also can emulate the soft handle and texture of virgin fibers. It’s something we’re really passionate about and something you can expect to see a lot more of in our James Dunlop collections moving forward.

How does the collection build on or complement your other offerings?
The Homestead collection draws inspiration from the magic of New Zealand’s landscape and its influence on our architecture and interior design. We appreciate that our clients seek aspirational trends and beautiful, decorative color at all levels of the market. In response, the collection delivers accessible, eminently livable luxury in compositions and constructions. The textiles are crafted to be layered with existing plains and signature patterns from the James Dunlop stable, ensuring holistic and timeless interior design solutions.

What about the collection feels fresh and exciting?
From our Pacific isles of relative isolation, we are inherently aware of the influence of place on our perspective. Our design studio prioritizes capturing the colors, forms and textures around us and translating them into custom colorways, ensuring our textiles and color palettes reflect the vistas beyond our windows and bring those outdoor elements in.

Whereas many textile wholesalers and converters purchase colors directly from suppliers across Europe and Asia, we work with our mills to develop shades that are suitable for Australasian palettes. When sourcing new textile constructions at European trade fairs, we often find color palettes that look fantastic up there, but when we’re back in our studios under our bright natural light, they can look too saturated. To compensate, we need to pursue custom color development with our mills—to gray-off colors and create more muted, paired-back hues for a slightly “dusted off” aesthetic.

Developing custom colorways in our design studio creates palettes that reflect our local lens. Perfectly placed within our home markets, these colors also provide a point of difference in export markets, whilst remaining agile as trends and market demands change.

Green is nature’s neutral, a color closely associated with ideas of wellness, restoration and revitalization. Studies show that pulling shades of nature indoors can positively impact well-being and support our desire to remerge anew. Throughout the Homestead collection, greens in soft shades of willow through to dark tones of moss provide decorative colors that pair effortlessly with layers of neutral tones.

Tell us about the materials in this collection. Are there certain materials used throughout or a material that is a highlight on a particular piece?
The Homestead collection is expertly engineered to offer luxury textiles without compromising on practicality. It captures the look and feel of natural fibers in predominantly synthetic or blended compositions.

With Kumo Recycled, existing PET plastic bottles are reconstructed and repurposed into yarn, reinterpreting the past as a more sustainable future. Embracing the imperfect quality of natural materials, Kumo Recycled has a slubby and delicate weave that beautifully emulates the appearance and handle of soft cotton in a durable polyester composition.

How do you envision designers using this collection?
We’re not in the business of fast fashion. We care about the lives spent on and around our fabrics; they are developed in our studio to be beautiful and enduring—designed to be lived on, not just looked at.

The collection presents a new facet of luxury that focuses on simplicity, tactility and practicality. These fabrics appeal to both the maximalist and the minimalist and are perfectly placed within rustic and contemporary spaces alike. Draperies elegantly frame the view whilst adding movement, privacy and warmth to a space. Upholsteries add texture, color and comfort to either tailored or curvaceous organic furniture frames.

We hope to share the essence of New Zealand through the colors and textures of the Homestead collection, to allow designers to bring the outdoors in via layers of interior textiles with endless specification opportunities across both residential and commercial projects.