Market Talent: The Legend Lives

-- Interior Design, 5/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Walking in the supremely stylish shoes of Florence Knoll would seem a daunting task—as is the job of hiring someone fit to wear them. A lengthy search led Knoll senior vice president and chief marketing officer David Schutte to Dorothy Cosonas, a soft-spoken yet energetic woman with a reputation for combining clear color with clean patterns and textures. Working to the Danish-inspired specs of Unika Vaev for 21 years, Cosonas retrained her eye for every collection while maintaining consistent commercial viability.

Now KnollTextiles's creative director, Cosonas is launching Knoll Luxe, a brand aimed at both corporate and residential markets. The first 10 patterns, offered in a total of 71 colorways, channel this company's heritage of being long on texture and big on scale. Also inspired by fashion, the fabrics are alive with references that range from the traditional tunic to the contemporary catwalk.

Jaipur, a cotton-polyester that references an archetypal Indian men's garment, features hand-embroidered looping. Garden City, its exploding circles based on the pattern of an Oscar de la Renta gown, is constructed of two layers of cotton, woven on the same loom and tethered at strategic points. Resembling a classic Knoll nubby weave, North Island is made of wool and nylon. Cotton-nylon Lyon seems simple but is actually a complex little stripe, woven in France with 10 warp colors used to create each of seven colorways. And Brugge, a cotton-acrylic blend chenille, offers a slimmed-down argyle pattern in seven colorways.

All fabrics in the collection pass standard Association for Contract Textiles tests and are Greenguard-certified. 866-565-5858; knoll-luxe.com. circle 422