Perspective by Paul Smith with Maharam
Perspective is the twenty-third woven textile designed by Paul Smith in collaboration with the Maharam Design Studio.
Perspective was developed in response to a series of paintings by Pezo von Ellrichshausen—the Chilean and Argentine architectural duo of Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen. Paul Smith first encountered their work at London’s Royal Academy in 2014. Following a 2019 visit to Chile and a stay in Poli House, a concrete cottage designed by the pair, Smith has drawn great inspiration from their practice in his pattern design for apparel. The Maharam Design Studio was similarly compelled by the duo’s unique use of colour and geometric order in their oil paintings of interiors. As vivid perspectival studies following light through a variety of doorways, windows, corners, and architectural portals, the paintings offer an uncommon sense of depth and space.
This elemental architectural language spoke to Smith and Maharam who worked closely to develop a pattern that would extend its vocabulary to upholstery. The inquiry also presented the opportunity to reimagine classic geometric motifs—a focus of the studios’ joint creative work for nearly two decades. Smith and Maharam landed on an intricate and immersive pattern of continuous, perpendicular, intersecting, and diagonal lines to create a disorienting vantage that is further articulated by colour blending and varied woven textures ranging from solid to pin-striped.
Woven by a specialized resource in the United States, Perspective makes use of a dense, highly picked construction that affords many colours within a single design. The palette centres Smith’s recognisable yet highly distinct colour pairings with iterative blends to deepen a sense of light and shadow.