Zara Home and Vincent Van Duysen team up for a collection of modern classics

Zara Home announces a new collaboration with Vincent Van Duysen, featuring furniture and home accessories in the distinctive sophisticated style of the Belgian architect. The first of a series of collaborative pieces (part of an ongoing collection scheduled to be updated with new designs twice a year) focus on the living room, with sofas, armchairs, tables, desks and consoles, as well as lighting, ceramics and textiles.

Zara Home meets Vincent Van Duysen

The collaboration was born from a connection between Van Duysen and Marta Ortega, chair of Zara’s parent company Inditex. A visit to the architect’s Antwerp home inspired Ortega to invite him to create a collection for Zara Home, upgrading the brand’s offering with his creative vision. ‘I didn't have to reflect too much for too long,’ says Van Duysen, who immediately accepted the offer. ‘I turned 60 in April, so it was the right time for me to introspect in my work and who I am, trying to find my DNA. So I looked back and seriously reflected on my past works.’

This will be the first time that Van Duysen’s designs are made more accessible: usually part of luxury collections for the likes of Molteni & C, of which he is creative director, or created for private clients, his designs have often been defined by an exclusive aura. ‘I am democratic, heart and soul,’ he says. ‘And I love the philosophy, the attitude and the positioning of Zara in the world to make beautiful things accessible for any of us. I wanted to see what that would look like for my furniture.’ Starting from 30 June 2022, the collection will be sold all over the world, instantly making his work available globally at an unprecedented scale. 

A debut collection for Zara Home

This first collection is inspired by the evolution of Van Duysen’s own Antwerp homes: his living room in the 1980s, when he had just moved back to Belgium from Milan, and his space now. Some subtle, distinctive motifs define these spaces, and they come back in the collection: purity of lines, geometries, natural materials including wood, stone and linen and a palette of neutral colours (bone, midnight blue, dark green) that give a peaceful and meditative tone to the environments.

The designs, just like his own attitude to creation, embody a sense of living, the Italian concept of abitare: ‘It’s about everyday spaces, what people live with, how they approach the pieces they love.’ This is a collection to be touched, embraced and lived with, featuring generous forms and simple silhouettes that make each piece easily at home in any environment. 

Each piece was simplified in its essence, maintaining the characteristic Van Duysen touch. The sofas and armchairs are inspired by typical British upholstered seating (or, as he calls it, ‘the archetypal comfortable sofa’), upholstered in neutral linen or bouclé textile, while the oak tables have the chunky spirit of many of Van Duysen’s interiors. Featuring a suspended leather seat, the stools have a modernist attitude, while side tables in ash and Galician limestone feature a cross-shaped base whose edges form a motif on the tabletop. Throughout the collection there are subtle nods to the designs of Luis Barragán, Alvar Aalto and Jean-Michel Frank. 

‘The collection reflects the way I am living, it’s really me,’ says Van Duysen, who plans to release a second collection with Zara Home in October 2022 and eventually, through this collaboration ‘cover everything that belongs to the art of living.’

Making his work accessible at a new level, Van Duysen concludes, ‘is an opportunity to fit the dreams and desires of anyone. Because we all need to dream’.

INFORMATION

The collection Zara Home + Vincent Van Duysen is available worldwide from 30 June 2022

zarahome.com
vincentvanduysen.com