The design is a field of crossing lines, taken from Japanese cloth and drawn far larger than that tradition usually allows. Scale is what makes it: the same motif at a small repeat would be a texture, and at 43 by 69 cm it is closer to architecture.
The construction is where the work sits. Two pile heights and two viscoses, one matte and one bright, are woven into the same velvet, so there is a low cut ground of the matte yarn and, standing above it, lashes of the shiny one. Light strikes the two at different depths, and the lines appear to lie on top of the cloth rather than in it.
Formafantasma drew it. 800 g a metre and 40,000 Martindale, which is a great deal of velvet and enough for real upholstery: a sofa, a pair of chairs, a headboard. 140 cm wide, six colourways, woven in India.
