Material girl: Christian Fischbacher

Designers paint with thick brushes or even their fingers. Thread samples, design sketches and drawings lie everywhere. Mood boards with photos, colour patterns and material samples cover the walls. Findings from the archive are rearranged on the computer. The Christian Fischbacher studio is a hotspot of creativity, and where, under the guidance of Art Director Camilla Fischbacher, the Swiss textile manufacturer’s new products take shape.

‘We work very freely and creatively,’ says Camilla Fischbacher. ‘And we do a lot of research on materials and manufacturing processes. Innovation is very important to us.’ For this reason, the studio seeks a close dialogue with the producers that it contracts with – the designers draw inspiration from their know-how, but also initiate new developments themselves. One example of this is the fabrics made of recycled PET that Camilla Fischbacher put on the market ten years ago under the BENU label.

Each collection begins with a theme, inspired by ideas collected on trips, at trade fairs or during visits to producers – as well as through research on the internet, in magazines or in trend books. ‘We then visualise the theme with mood boards,’ says Camilla Fischbacher. Swatches of fabric are tested and initial drafts follow. ‘We think about which producer we can best realise a design with.’ This might be a company in India, such as for the silk fabrics, or one just round the corner – St Gallen, after all, lies in a region with a long textile tradition.

And the interplay of tradition and innovation is central to the firm’s design philosophy. Designers create fresh, contemporary patterns out of historical floral and fruit motifs or through combining old craft-based techniques like embroidery or moiré with innovative textiles. Whatever the mode of expression, the quality remains Christian Fischbacher.

© Architonic