Innovator Sandy Chilewich - 30 years of creating "new function from something familiar."

Sandy Chilewich: "I am the poster child for taking my own path and honestly I walked blind at first...allowing yourself to fail and then succeed became my education..."

 

According to Sandy Chilewich, one of her biggest motivators is to create "a new function from something familiar," which is exactly what she did when she produced her award-winning RayBowl, introduced in 1997 at the MOMA in New York.

The RayBowl, was such an exciting, new, fun design. This blog writer bought hers at the MoMA's Design Store in New York in 1997, it also is green, and she still loves it!

 

The first design from her studio, Chilewich, it consisted of a simple wire steel frame covered in stretchy power mesh. Chilewich already knew a thing or two about stretchy fabric: with Kathy Moskal in 1978, she co-founded leg wear company HUE – a wildly successful endeavor that they eventually sold before forging out on their own in 1994.

Trained as an artist, Chilewich continued experimenting with natural and synthetic materials, pushing their physical and functional limits. Leveraging the success of RayBowl, she moved on to create a completely new design material.

In 2000, she introduced floor mats, place mats and totes made from her propriety woven vinyl. Soft and flexible yet extremely sturdy, the material, which she dubbed "plynyl," was the result of an intensive research process.

 

The Chilewich Spun Table Mats are made of liquid vinyl poured through tiny holes onto a moving belt. Chilewich Table Mats will change forever how you dress your table.

 

"The durability of this extruded yarn, the intrinsic sheen of the material, its tremendous design versatility, and the fact that it is washable inspired me then and continues to inspire me today," explains Chilewich. It won her the coveted Editor’s Award at the 2001 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) and solidified her career.

 

The Chilewich Dahlia Table Mat, with its lace-line openwork, is available in show-stopping metallic colours such as gold, silver and brass, also bright lime green and orange.

 

Over the years, Sandy Chilewich has expanded her collection with new textures, colors and products, including wood grain vinyl prints, striped patterns, asymmetrical place mats and floor mats, napkins and iPhone cases. She continues to redefine how people dress their tables and cover their floors around the world with her innovative textiles.

These stainless steel napkin rings finish off your best dressed table setting.

 

Sandy runs Chilewich with her husband, Joe Sultan, an architect whose family operated a company based in NYC, selling tablecloths and place mats. "Made in America is not a badge we wear but we should. Since we started our company in 2000, we have been designing and sourcing products from the USA."

Customers in the USA can purchase many of GRShop's products at ModernPlanet.com and receive the same great customer service and free shipping.