Bauhaus Blankets: Recreated

Wallace Sewell is a textile design company that many Londoners will know already – even if they don’t know it. Travel on the Northern, Bakerloo or Jubilee lines and you will see the company’s colourful moquettes adorning the train’s seats as it snakes its way through the city’s tunnels every day. Tiny impressions of London’s landmarks can be found in each of these patterns including Big Ben, the London Eye and Tower Bridge, and this is just a snippet of what Wallace Sewell have produced for the UK market. Through experimentation with colour and geometry, mixed with a pairing of handloom design and industrial mill weaving, Wallace Sewell has been inspired over the years by the Bauhaus design ethos; carefully coupling the handmade with the mechanical.

Now, London design studio Wallace Sewell is working on reproducing a Bauhaus blanket. It was originally created by Gunta Stölzl - then the head of weaving for Bauhaus - for the Dessau student dormitories. Bauhaus students wove over 100 of these blankets, but they have all mysteriously disappeared. As Bauhaus is celebrating its anniversary year, the founder of Designshop Bauhaus Dessau commissioned Wallace Sewell to reissue the blanket. They will adorn the dormitory beds when the Bauhaus Dessau building reopens this September and welcomes students once again. 

While the designers are working with archival drawings and photographs to reproduce the blankets as faithfully as they can, there will be one change. The original blankets were woven in rayon - then a popular material - but the designers have decided to use wool for the reissued version as it is more sustainable and attractive. 

Blog post by Jessica Edney. Read more about Bauhaus blankets in the current issue. Subscribe to Selvedge here.