June 5, 2015
The company’s combination of design genius and technical prowess produces beautiful results.
After a long slide accelerated by the recession, wallcovering sales began growing again in the U.S. in the past few years, and are expected to show a 7% gain this year to nearly half a billion dollars. At Design Commerce Agency, we are bullish on the potential for the industry, as changes in printing and materials technology are unleashing a wave of creativity among manufacturers and designers.
There’s no better example of this happy evolution than the continuing progress of Arte International. The Zonhoven, Belgium-based company prides itself on a combination of design and finish, and is admired all over the world. Design Commerce Agency Founding Partner Art Libera has gotten to know the company over the past fifteen years through his relationship with Koroseal Studios, which represents the European company to contract and hospitality clients in North America. Arte products have wide appeal as the highly-polished aesthetic isn’t at the expense of practicality. Many of the products are washable and strippable, which makes them easier to install and maintain than hand-finished choices that are often their only close peers for design.
“I’ve admired Arte’s special kind of genius for so long,” Art says. “The rigor of their creative thinking is matched only by the meticulousness of the execution.”
Arte’s website showcases 41 collections, each carefully developed from a core creative concept to a range of color, detail and texture choices for a variety of settings. Here, we’re offering a sampling from one of their latest collections, introduced earlier in 2015. The Rhapsody collection reflects their in-house design team’s fascination with music: its symbolism, fantasy, tone, vibrations, and rhythms. “Music can suddenly pluck hold of you,” Arte’s team explains. “Usually you don’t know why and you can’t resist it.”
Please enjoy the short musical selections below. For the full performance, start here on Arte’s website.
Opus, a larger print, summons associations with luxurious tapestries.
A closeup detail of Opus shows the finesse of Arte’s design and printing.
Arco, a fine, modern damask motif, features unusual contrasting colours and shiny contours
Selected excerpts from the Rhapsody collection illustrate a range of textures and shadings.
Tempo contributes rhythm and regularity to the collection based on musical influences.
Arte’s “Note” shows the rhythm of fabric and, if you play with the light, “a frivolous radiance.”
Considered the collection’s “grand finale,” Rondo offers the radiance and luster of One Thousand and One Nights.
This close-up of Rondo illustrates how Arte’s products rival hand-made products for rich detail.
Solo, a finely woven fabric print, adds balance – as Arte says, the “orchestration” of the range.
Conceived to put you in the mood for the beautiful curves, lustre and warm metal colours of musical instruments.
