Christien Meindertsma

LABEL/BREED is a progressive Dutch design label focused on establishing collaborations between designers and manufacturers promoting the development of innovative and sustainable interior objects. Designer Christien Meindertsma and natural fibre specialist Enkev teamed up to create a new material that combines natural flax fibres with strong bio-plastic PLA fibres.

The Flax chair is composed of four layers of woven flax and five layers of dry-needled felted flax, both containing PLA fibre. When placed in a heat-pressed mould, the PLA melts into the textile fibres and makes the composite hard and strong. The chair to be made from one sheet of composite measuring 100 by 60cm with very little waste. Note the peripheral fleece cut to form the legs and the central portion to create the body of the seat.

The Flax Chair won the grand jury prize at the Dutch Design Awards 2016 and sits in the permanent collections of the Vitra Design Museum and Design Museum London. Ours has been the first showing of Flax Chair in Scotland.

For Dovecot, we are delighted to present a unique Flax Chair, a Design Collaboration commissioned by R-Space Gallery for N.Ireland Linen Biennale 2018 showing here for the first time outside Ireland.

Following her earlier ‘Fibre Market’ project (Design Museum, London 2016) Meindertsma was left with a substantial collection of colour-sorted fibres harvested from discarded woolen sweaters. Irish Donegal tweed is typically adorned with tiny coloured flecks, historically a process developed to make the most of the scarcity of colourful yarns by peppering them throughout a textile to decorative effect. Meindertsma worked with local manufacturers (Donegal Yarn and Malloy and Sons) to create a Donegal tweed where these flecks are made from the recycled wool fibre of discarded sweaters. Layers of this new Donegal Tweed have replaced two layers of the woven linen of the original construction.

Photo of Christian Meindertsma in studio, courtesy of Label/Breed.