Threads, Forms and Creative Freedom

Before we dive into Dedar’s story – how did your collaboration with Vitra come about?
Raffaele Fabrizio (RF): My first contact with Vitra was as a student. I was 23, studying architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. A group of us drove north to visit the Vitra Campus to see first hand Herzog & de Meuron, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid. For young architects, it was like entering a dream. We crossed the Alps in a beat-up red Alfa Romeo — sunshine in Italy, snow in Switzerland.

Years later, I met Till Weber, Vitra’s Creative Director for Interiors and Scenography. Our first meeting ended with a mix of curiosity and caution. I still remember what he told me: “You manage to be decorative without being affected.” He also said: “Don’t rush. We take time to evaluate new partners.”

So we stayed in touch. Nearly a decade later, we launched our first collaboration: the Prouvé capsule edition in Karandash bouclé fabric. And now we’ve expanded to a broader collection.

Let’s go back to Dedar’s origins. What made it different from Italy’s traditional textile cuture?
Caterina Fabrizio (CF): Dedar was born out of a desire to do things differently. Dedar was founded in 1976 in Milan, at a time when Milan was becoming a centre for bold experimentation in both fashion and design. It was the time of radical shifts in aesthetics – a moment when elegance was being refined. There was a sense that beauty could be light, unconventional and surprising.

Our mother carried one of the first Prada’s nylon bags – then a radical choice in luxury fashion. That spirit of experimentation in Milan during the late 70s and 80s had a profound influence on Dedar. It shaped our DNA: a deep respect for quality, yes, but paired with curiosity, modernity and freedom of expression.

RF: We always saw textiles as more than decoration. From the start, we approached textiles as expressive materials – with function, emotion and architectural presence. Textiles could shape a room just as much as the furniture itself.

What role did your parents play in forming that identity?
RF: Our parents had incredible intuition. They came from couture backgrounds, so they understood quality, craftsmanship and style. But they also had a kind of fearless openness – a freedom, even a touch of naïveté – that allowed them to follow intuition and taste rather than tradition.

CF: They were explorers, always curious and drawn to global design. That openness sparked Dedar’s founding and it still drives our search for new ideas.

When did Dedar shift from fashion to interiors?
CF: Our father made that move when interior textiles were still conservative.

RF: Yes, at the time, most designs were rooted in 19th-century florals and baroque scrolls. Meanwhile, furniture and architecture were evolving – embracing new forms, materials and collaborations. Textiles were frozen in time and greatly lagged behind.

CF: We began creating textiles that were both functional and beautiful. For example, extra-wide window fabrics woven on double-width looms offered new architectural possibilities. Their scale magnified their beauty while remaining incredibly practical. Over time, we found ourselves at the intersection of two great traditions: Italy’s heritage of fine silks and wools and the spirit of modern design. That duality became our voice. Our fabrics helped designers reinterpret historic spaces with elegance and a fresh point of view.

RF: Today’s interiors mix styles freely: tribal artifact beside modernist furniture, or a Jean Prouvé chair under a contemporary painting. Our textiles are part of that language – a bridge between architecture, art, design and history.

What happened after those early years? How did Dedar begin to expand?
CF: Raffaele and I joined in the late 1990s when Dedar was just 15 people. Today, we are 200.
A turning point came when architect Jacques Garcia used our fabrics for the Hotel Costes in Paris – a project that defined the style of the 1990s.

Do you collaborate with external designers on your fabrics collections or is everything created internally?
RF: We design everything in-house. That’s one of our strengths! The textile world requires deep, nuanced knowledge of yarns, weaving techniques, pattern construction. To me, it’s closer to painting than industrial design. Most product designers aren’t typically trained for that complexity.

How do you maintain such high standards of quality? Where is production based?
CF: Most of our production happens in Italy – about 75% – especially near Como. We work with around 50 highly specialised suppliers, from yarn dyeing to moiré, velvet weaving, embroidery, and more.
We also source specific artisanal crafts – like hand-weaving and embroidery – from France and India.

What are Dedar’s technical specialties? What are you most recognised for?
CF: Colour! Our palette is very distinctive – often more inspired by fashion than interior design, which gives it a richness and playfulness. It’s exploratory. We’re also known for our velvets – cotton, silk, wool. Each fiber behaves differently, but all convey sensuality and texture. Our velvets and fine qualities are definitely a signature.

RF: Margaritas, for example, evokes the sensation of being immersed in a flower-filled field. It’s abstract and expressive, influenced by Willem de Kooning and American Abstract Expressionism. We used a textured base to make it tactile, not flat. Another is Tiger Mountain, a jacquard velvet inspired by our childhood memory of Tibetan rug patterns – specifically tiger motifs from an old book from our family library. The goal wasn’t to create a literal tiger, but to evoke that magical, slightly mysterious childhood sense of awe.

How does your approach change when working with three-dimensional furniture? Furnishing and upholstery is a different challenge than more flat surfaces.
RF: Every fabric is developed with its purpose in mind – drapery, upholstery or wallcovering. For furniture, we need to meet specific technical criteria: abrasion resistance, pilling, colour fastness, etc. We test rigorously.
In parallel, we also look at aesthetics: how the fabric moves over curves, how it handles light and the reflection of it. One design trick: we often use the same yarn in both warp and weft. It gives the fabric visual balance – almost a subtle grip – that works beautifully on furniture. It’s both structured and soft.

What about your approach to patterns?
RF: When it comes to patterns, scale matters most. Large patterns can work beautifully as fragments. Repetition doesn’t need to be monotonous. Many of our fabrics emphasise movement, sensation or texture over fixed, frontal patterns. It’s a modern approach that aligns well with how furniture and interiors are conceived today.

Customisation is a big theme in design today. How do you approach it in textiles?
CF: One of the most fascinating things about textiles is how powerfully they can transform a space. Simply choosing the right fabric is already a form of customisation – it brings personality and emotion to a room.
That said, you’re right, customisation isn’t easy. It’s something we do mostly for large-scale or hospitality projects.

RF: Sometimes, the customisation is functional rather than aesthetic. A client might love a textile but needs it to be flame-retardant or meet certain standards. In those cases, we re-engineer the fabric to fit the brief. That’s quite common.

CF: Ultimately, textiles are about expression. Like picking an outfit from your closet, choosing a fabric is an intimate decision – it connects you to a space. We see ourselves as enablers of that creative, emotional process. This is also something we see in Vitra’s approach – transforming collection pieces by applying textiles with strong character. In that way, customisation doesn’t always mean creating something entirely new. Choosing the right textile is already a form of personalisation – just think of a Prouvé lounge chair in a bolt, cobalt-blue Karandash bouclé.