Thorsønn scraps collection was inspired by a collaboration
with Norwegian fashion house Lillunn and Norwegian Fashion & Textile Agenda.
Norway produces 90 tons of post-industrial wool every year which is a waste product of production. Norwegian Fashion& Textile Agenda has been documenting the management of this waste and facilitating projects that work with repurposing it. They put together a workshop and invited Jennifer Valone of Thorsønn and Elisabeth Stray Pedersen of Lillunn.
Sustainability
Norwegian Fashion & Textile Agenda is a cluster project and peer-to-peer industry organization with the overall goal of working towards a sustainable, value-creating and recognized fashion and textile industry in Norway. They develop and facilitate both short and long term collaborative projects, based on common challenges faced by both member companies and partners.
Weaving and Patchwork Traditions
Thorsønn designs and manufactures made-to-order furniture in Norway. We believe in working with local craftspeople so that we can ensure the quality of our products and materials, and contribute to maintaining traditional crafts and techniques.
Lillunn, a 70 year old traditional Norwegian brand has produced blankets and garments in pure Norwegian lambswool since the 1970s. They have a long history of using their biproducts from production waste material, like “fillerye” or scrap rug and patchwork. These methods are of the most efficient because they use the fabric in it’s current form and do not require any further industrial processing.
Lillunn needed a partner to renew this product line, and bring it into a more contemporary context so Thorsønn bought a few bags of scraps and began experimenting with techniques for weaving fillerye.
“We were so inspired by the quality of Lillunn textiles. We wanted to create something that emphasised the material as well as the traditional technique used to repurposing them.” — Jennifer Valone of Thorsønn
FILLE RUGS.
We at Thorsønn wanted to create a modern interpretation of the traditional fillerye technique, something that accentuated the materials that went into the product. We cut scraps into strips and pieced them together with knots that when woven into the rug massage your feet when you walk on it. Through many tests and prototyping we developed a pattern that we describe as a “deconstructed” fillerye with loose ends creating a fringe along the sides which shows how the rug is constructed. This fringe also compliments the clean lines of the Thorsønn sofas.
Thorsønn eventually found a partner for weaving the rugs, just a 10 minute drive from Lillunn’s factory, and have made an edition of 6 to exhibit to the public.
The rugs are very time consuming, the scraps need to be cut, pieced together and woven all by hand. Also not all of the scrap materials worked as well in the rugs because of their pattern or texture. This is how the idea of patchwork blankets was born.
FILLE BLANKETS
Patchwork, like fillerye, is a traditional method of repurposing fabrics. Patchwork was used by ancient Egyptians for their clothes, wall decorations, draperies and furniture, with oldest depictions from 5,500 years ago. Lillunn had experience with patchwork in the past so the obvious partner for production was Lillunn's own factory. Thorsønn brought back the scraps that weren’t as suitable for rugs and put together two pattern directions that could be used to piece together these scraps. The patches on the blankets create geometric patterns when sewn together. These shapes are determined by the scraps used so each blanket has its own expression.
Even though the workshop is finished the collaboration between Thorsønn and Lillunn continue in the FILLE collection from Thorsønn. The blankets and rugs are all made from the post-industrial waste. Each one is carefully curated and one of a kind.