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| Trubridge design - 3d and 3d |
Innovative New Zealand textile company Hemptech began their business in the 1990s when hemp was revived as a credible textile - it was systematically destroyed by Du Pont and Willam Randolph Hearst in the 1930s as it represented a challenge to their own textiles and income - but as a textile option in the nineties it was quickly seen as the domain of hippies, potheads and people with very bad design sense. To Hemptech's credit, they realised that hemp was in fact a superior product but that as a fabric or covering no matter how good the product, the stigma remained. Success lay in the design, the art and the quality of the product would carry itself. Today Hemptech has gone way beyond the stereotype of cannabis leaf logos on sacky-looking bags to team with one of Aotearoa's leading designers, David Trubridge.
Followers of New Zealand design will be familiar with Trubridge's sculptural pieces that are as much art as function and his innate sense of the natural shapes and form that are abundant in the New Zealand landscape. This week the first a new collection of fabric designs between Trubridge and the textile leader was launched at Parnell's Essenze gallery. Entitled "Rings" Trubridge spoke of the influence of nature, "the crackled surface of melt pools on an Antarctic glacier; intricate layers of siltstone on the Otago coastline; shoot-green bursts of life after a deluge in the Outback" as images he held close in the design process. The collection will be available in New Zealand and Australia in six colourways and two fabric weights.
