Earlier this month Emerson and Dominique, Gainsborough’s MD and Head of Design, headed out at the crack of dawn to Berlin, for this year’s European HIDesign. HIDesign is widely considered the key event for buyers and suppliers of the hotel and hospitality sectors, facilitating 20-odd highly productive 25-minute meetings per supplier over the course of 2 days, interspersed with seminars with some of the most successful hoteliers and contract designers in the business.
The event is new to Gainsborough but proved the ideal event at which to give trade buyers a first viewing of our third launch of 2018, the Gainsborough Criterion collections.
So new that we’re not yet fully stocked across all three collections, Gainsborough Criterion represents a significant departure for Gainsborough in our 115th anniversary year. The collections offer the best of all worlds: the beauty and integrity of Gainsborough designs in a versatile range of fabrics, at price points that allow designers and specifiers to bring our stunning designs for drapery and upholstery to their entire schemes. Criterion I is a collection of six much-loved archive designs, all 100% inherently flame-retardant (IFR), in 9 colourways apiece; Criterion II is an upholstery-grade collection (40,000+ rubs) also IFR, bringing together three 1950s-inspired designs, each presented in 9 colourways, alongside the three designs (in 3 colourways each) developed initially for the Sir John Soane’s Collection in 2017; Criterion III is a further upholstery collection (40,000+ rubs) of 20 stunning stripes, incorporating noble yarns for a more luxurious feel with an optional FR coating.
The Gainsborough Criterion collections are distinct from anything else on the market, reflecting Gainsborough’s heritage as a designer-maker. The reception the collections received at HIDesign was simply overwhelming, confirming our belief that our design, colour and composition choices for these collections had hit the proverbial nail on the head. We returned from HID with countless new connections and relationships to build on as we set out on the next leg of Gainsborough’s exciting journey; the full collections will be available to the trade from mid-July.
