Tracing the origins of Artek's Zebra
Encountered by Aino Aalto on her travels through Europe in the early 1930s, the Zebra textile has become one of the most enduring design elements in Artek’s ninety-one-year history.
As Artek celebrates the launch of the first colour variation of the classic black-and-white Zebra textile, now reinterpreted in earthy brown and white, it is an appropriate moment to look back at its origins. New research by Judith Raum suggests that the original Zebra textile, which first appeared on Aalto furniture in 1934, was the first known woven fabric designed to reproduce the markings of a zebra skin. Tracing its journey from France to Finland reveals a fascinating story of modernist networks, uncovered archives and one of Artek's most enduring design icons.
The pattern is likely to have emerged from a mill in Lyon, France in the late 1920s, influenced by the contemporary fashion adopted in interiors and high-end Parisian fashion houses for using genuine furs from exotic animals. (fig1). The Art Deco movement often had a tendency towards using striking, high-contrast designs, and the zebra textile was an eye-catching example of this. Translating the pattern into a woven textile allowed designers to adapt the broad markings of a zebra skin to furniture of many different sizes.