Vincent Van Duysen launches ‘most fashionable’ assortment for Zara House

Final week in Antwerp, Vincent Van Duysen opened the doorways of his non-public dwelling for an business occasion – the primary time he has achieved so since shopping for the outdated townhouse as a younger architect 27 years in the past. The intimate celebration, which gathered the Flemish architect’s shut pals, shoppers and choose members of the press, marked the launch of his fourth assortment for Spanish megalith Zara House – a collaboration first unveiled in 2022, bringing Van Duysen’s elevated fashion to a broader viewers for the primary time.

Organized throughout the townhouse’s three flooring in a muted palette of oak, darkish heat-treated ash, limestone, marble leather-based and stainless-steel, the brand new and present items from his Zara House assortment displayed all of the hallmarks of Van Duysen’s signature fashion: minimalist but monumental, tactile but restrained. Somewhat than showing overtly ‘branded’, the items have been rigorously camouflaged into the refined interiors, proven alongside Van Duysen’s personal classic furnishings and picked up artworks – creating one thing of a sport of ‘spot the Zara’.

In the lounge, a pale yellow loveseat (‘Loveseat 01’ from ‘Assortment 01’) with an elongated seat invited company to lounge, whereas underfoot the brand new ‘Rug 05’ – a white, deep-pile design that begs to be touched – got here perilously near glasses of crimson wine. Upstairs, in the primary bed room, a wall was lit by a book-like mirror-polished metal lamp (‘Highlight 01’ – one in every of 4 lamps debuting on this fourth instalment). A leather-upholstered bench with a darkish heat-treated ash body (‘Bench 01’) sat on the foot of the mattress, in sharp distinction to the white mattress linen.

However the dwelling’s most spectacular area was absolutely the top-floor attic – superbly renovated right into a beneficiant suite with an uncovered timber roof construction, bathed in hazy mild from built-in skylights. Right here, alongside present linen-upholstered items in muted shades, sat a brand new lounge chair (‘Lounge Chair 03’), its darkish ash body softened by radius edges and a padded leather-based seat and again.

The design course of, Van Duysen says, has been a deeply private one – offering a uncommon second of introspection that prompted him to replicate on his life’s work. It started over three years in the past when Marta Ortega Pérez, daughter of Zara founder Amancio Ortega and now chairwoman of Inditex, approached him with a carte blanche provide to design a set. The reply, he says, was an instantaneous sure. ‘It was one thing I by no means anticipated them to ask me,’ he remembers. ‘I had simply turned 60, and it gave me the chance to replicate on who I’m, the place I’m standing – not solely as an individual but in addition as an architect, as a designer – and ask, “what’s my DNA?”’

To seek out out, he delved into his archive, stretching again 40 years to the start of his profession, analysing the items in his houses and figuring out a crimson thread. ‘I recognized all of those items, revisited each individually, and gave them a brand new twist,’ he explains. As soon as introduced to the Zara group, the manufacturing course of was, he says, ‘unbelievably quick and environment friendly’ – the primary assortment was rotated and photographed in a matter of weeks.

Regardless of this effectivity, for Van Duysen, consideration to element and craftsmanship was non-negotiable. ‘I actually needed to have this as a assure,’ he displays. All of the items are made in Spain and Portugal, with textiles woven in India – the hand of the craftsperson clearly seen within the end. All the things, he says, is made to final a lifetime, and the standard is mirrored within the value factors. Not like Zara’s clothes, the place a costume may cost one tenth of a designer robe, right here you may count on to pay as much as £6,900 for a settee. That’s nonetheless round half the worth of a comparable designer Italian couch, however it firmly distances itself from the throwaway logic of quick furnishings. ‘All these items, they’re singularly drafted by craftspeople. And you’ll really feel that. You’ll be able to see that the supplies are actually lovely.’

In positioning itself at this extra elevated tier, Zara House is doing extra than simply showcasing design credentials. It displays a wider shift: dwelling manufacturers throughout the spectrum – from mid-market gamers like Ferm Dwelling, Soho House and Hay to mass-market giants like Ikea (whose ‘Stockholm’ assortment launched at Milan Design Week this yr) and H&M – more and more leaning into the language of ‘quiet’ or ‘reasonably priced luxurious’ in an try and reposition themselves, aesthetically at the very least, as purveyors of permanence.

Van Duysen’s fourth assortment aligns neatly with this route. Whereas a part of the continued sequence, it introduces a barely extra fashionable sensibility – most notably by means of the introduction of polished stainless-steel and modern typologies similar to a clean-lined modular couch system. ‘My world may be very sensorial,’ Van Duysen instructed Wallpaper* on the launch get together. ‘I’m a modernist, a contemporary soul as properly, though I’m additionally conservative and like conventional furnishings too.’

For Zara House, what started as one thing of an experiment has grown into a world success – introducing larger-scale items to its viewers for the primary time and marking a turning level within the model’s id. ‘In my view, it’s introduced in prospects who could not have paid consideration to Zara House earlier than Vincent,’ says Héctor Barrantes Torrús, from the model’s Advertising and Communication group. ‘And I feel, particularly for the reason that pandemic, persons are extra invested of their interiors. They’re prepared to spend on one thing that feels crafted – one thing that carries that means and high quality.’

Obtainable from zarahome.com from 12 June and in chosen shops.

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