High-Fashion Fabrications

For more than eight years Laura Bergmann has been a product designer for The Land of Nod, Crate & Barrel’s children’s store, conceptualizing room décor from lighting and rugs to curtains and bedding. In March 2011, Laura launched Laura Bergmann Textiles, a line of made-to-order modern textiles. Pleats, tucks, waves, curls, tubes and appliqués are just a few techniques she uses to craft her creations, pulling from a diverse group of fabrics such as silk, felt, synthetic taffeta, chiffon duchess satin and pigs suede. The end result are intricate, multi-dimensional textiles in inspired applications, from pillows and wall art to lamp shades and small furniture upholstery.

SLHL: How did your work with The Land of Nod come about?

LB: One day, a catalog from The Land of Nod hit my mailbox and I thought, “I love this catalog. What can I do for them?” I looked at the holes in their offering and thought they could do accessories better. So I put together a portfolio of wall art and room décor — items I thought would enhance what they already had. One project turned into two, three, and now, eight plus years later, it’s a full-time job. 

SLHL: What influences your artistic inspiration?

LB: I’ve been collecting these ideas for five or six years. I look around everywhere for The Land of Nod — every kind of kid’s and home magazine — and I always see things I’d like to do but that just aren’t kid-appropriate. I follow fashion and the way designers play with fabric, and I’ve always had this separate, “someday” file. I’m inspired by origami, and I look at paper artists sometimes, too. You run across inspiration all the time.

SLHL: You work from home. Do your two children ever contribute to your work?

LB: When they were little, I made costumes for The Land of Nod, and [my daughter] Kate was my little model. They’ve participated, too. Kate did a hopscotch drawing that I turned into a rug and [my son] Tucker made something with numbering that I used in wall art [for The Land of Nod].

SLHL: How did you create such a versatile textile line?

LB: I’ve made 10 individual styles. There are tons of colors, but 10 techniques, or as I call them, fabrications. That sounds like you’ve built something, and that’s what I’m doing. You build the fabric as much as you sew it. You manipulate it. The techniques are very specific, but the whole line is made with solid colors so they can mix with many different rooms. While a lot of them look modern, I think they can fit into traditional settings because some of the techniques, such as pleating, have been around forever. 

SLHL: What inspired you to launch Laura Bergmann Textiles?

LB: Creatively, this is a chance for me to do everything that’s been stored in the back of my brain as something brilliant that I’ve been dying to do, but have never had the reason to do. This is my imagination running wild. When I started this, I sort of had to pick from all of the things in the world that I would want to do, and this is the answer. 

RESOURCES: 
Laura Bergmann, L | B Textiles, 314-918-7469, info@lbergmann.com, www.lbergmann.com