KnollTextiles

KnollTextiles is a legendary brand built by modernist design icon and National Medal of Arts recipient Florence Knoll Bassett.

Florence Schust ― her maiden name ― demonstrated an early interest in architecture and studied at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where her career in design began. The connections she made and the skills she developed at Cranbrook were the foundations of her incredible design career. She went on to study under some of the greatest 20th-century architects.

In 1941, Schust moved to New York, where she met Hans Knoll, who was establishing his furniture company. With her design skills and Knoll’s business acumen, the two grew the nascent company into an international arbiter of style and design.

The proverb, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” never was truer than for Florence Knoll in the early 1940s. "It became apparent to me that suitable textiles were not available for our furniture and interiors," Knoll wrote. She was determined to find modern upholstery for Hans Knoll’s modern furniture in a market dominated by traditional decorator wares, such as brocade and cabbage roses. She turned to tweeds and flannels from Scotland for use in commercial interiors. This unexpected adaptation of simple menswear fabric for furniture application signified the beginning of KnollTextiles’ enduring legacy of innovation. Florence Knoll also began a tradition of collaborating with cutting-edge artists and designers like Eszter Haraszty, Suzanne Huguenin and Anni Albers that still is in practice today. KnollTextiles has gone on to develop several signature fabrics that set the benchmark for the contract market.

“Very few textile companies can say they offer a breadth of products that have had a consistent point of view for 70 years. More importantly, no one in the market is connected to a legendary design visionary like Florence Knoll, the founder of our company,” creative director Cosonas said.