Finely woven favourite places
A furniture manufactory in Viersen is responsible for the renaissance of a material called loom.
Marshall B. Lloyd had a both simple and ingenious idea: the American wrapped paper around metal wire twice and then wove the material very finely. He called the resultant material “loom” – and it very soon outstripped traditional wickerwork like rattan or willow. Loom experienced its boom in the 1920s and 1930s. Later, however, it fell into disuse.
At the end of the 1970s the brothers Hans and Heinz Vieten from Viersen in North Rhine-Westphalia travelled through England and by chance came upon some old original items of Lloyd loom furniture. Their passion for these timeless masterpieces and the long-lasting material was aroused – so much, in fact, that in 1981 the duo founded the Accente company in Viersen. It became the first manufacturer to revive the old production method and continues, as the brothers say, to make “the Original” by hand.
The firm manufactures high-quality furniture for bedrooms, living rooms and dining rooms on the basis of the Lloyd loom technique. In addition to private households, the company also furnishes hotels, restaurants, airport lounges, yachts and cruise ships. Accente furniture can be found not only in Schloss Meseberg, the guesthouse of the Federal Government, but also on the cruise ship MS Deutschland.
The design of loom furniture oscillates between classical and modern. It is “neither country house nor Bauhaus”, according to the company’s own description of its timeless design. Apart from that, customers play an important part is determining the appearance of these individually made pieces of furniture by choosing size, colour, material and leather. The company’s motto is: “A special place is not created with machines, a place of meaning and comfort is not a product of an assembly line.”
www.handmade-in-germany.org
www.deutsche-manufakturen.org
www.accente.com
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