The Architecture of Cloth: Twill Textiles

By Donna Sapolin

Suzanne Lovell, the owner of Chicago-based Suzanne Lovell Interiors and co-owner with hand-weaver Sam Kasten of Twill Textiles, is staring at a leaf she found this morning while walking her standard poodle, Lamb. Lovell studies its shape and veining along with the hallmarks of autumn’s arrival-blazing frog belly green and eggplant hues. “These are the same colors as the threads in some of the Twill fabrics,” she remarks, revealing the profound influence that nature has on her company’s collection.

Lovell’s eye is the kind that relishes structure as much as surface beauty, precision as much as freewheeling pattern. A keen balance of left-brain and right-brain sensibilities underlie her interests and passions: fly fishing, which she describes as a set of rigorous techniques capable of inducing a meditative state; design projects, which involve not only artful décor but also substantial renovations that regularly call on her training as an architect; and Twill’s milled textiles, which emulate Kasten’s custom hand-woven fabrics as a result of the specific yarns and exacting processes employed in their production.

“There’s an enormous amount of technical know-how in Sam’s operations, from the looms and yarns to the ways in which they are made to look luxurious,” Lovell says. This knowledge base fueled the partnership between Lovell and Kasten that resulted in the launch of Twill. “For many years, there was something of Sam’s on every job I did,” says Lovell. “For example, I’d turn to him for the drapery fabric or the upholstery.”

“I knew that anything he would make would be beautiful even if wasn’t exactly what I initially envisioned.”

“We had a wonderful design collaboration‑I’d ask for something and then he’d say ‘let’s try this’ or ‘what do you think of this one’? We learned to really trust one another’s vision and value the collaboration.”

If the shared vision and trusting bond made the company possible, the inspiration for its founding was an utter absence in the marketplace of milled textiles with a hand-woven appearance. Lovell carried Kasten’s fabrics around for a decade, she says, trying to find it in the industry. “I talked to the leaders in the field, asking them where I could find them and why very sophisticated goods with very simple weaves weren’t available.” The result of that inquiry was her asking Kasten if they could get some of his hand-woven fabrics made by machine so that instead of costing $500-$800 a yard the look and feel could be had for $100 a yard.

The company was formed and, over time, mills engaged throughout the world-from the States, Italy, and France to Switzerland, Canada, and Peru. Lovell’s and Kasten’s choices of the mills involved in the production of Twill’s textiles were based in part on where the yarns come from since they drive the fabrics; it takes extremely distinctive yarns to achieve the look that Lovell and Kasten are after. “We are careful to use yarns that Sam is using in his hand-woven goods,” says Lovell. “They have a unique density and they are mostly natural-silk, linen and wool.”

The techniques are also critical to the sort of quality they are after. Kasten has been perfecting his weaving techniques for over 30 years and he has shared his technical insights with the mills.

“That kind of exchange is what is making our textiles so different from what is on market,” says Lovell. “The mills are thrilled that we are interested in and really understand the art of weaving. Usually someone just sends in a computer drawing but we figure it out together with them.”

The benefits stemming from the relationship with the mills have not only been beneficial for the factories and for Twill. “There is lots of information coming from a lot of different sources,” says Lovell. “These sparks of imagination are inspiring Sam to do new things in the hand-woven area and also advancing my design business.” Much of the inspiration for new Twill fabrics derives from Lovell’s interior design projects. A scheme for a suite at the St. Regis in New York City where she wanted to combine hand-woven with machined fabrics led to the creation of a new navy blue and gray fabric for Twill. But what most excites Lovell is seeing what Twill products other designers are drawn to and how they are using them. Designers ranging from Thierry Despont and Jeffrey Bilhuber to Nathan Egan and Marjorie Shushan have incorporated them into projects. “It’s been really fun to see these relationships develop,” says Lovell.

It’s also been gratifying for her to see the fabrics she and Kasten envision materialize; she has discovered a natural affinity between the design endeavor and weaving. “A weave drawdown resembles an architectural plan,” Lovell says. “I found weaving in architecture and Sam found architecture in weaving.” To make the point, she shares her memory of the time she requested a fabric design from Kasten’s studio that would look like the skin of a Burmese python. “A weave structure drawing came back that looked exactly like an architectural drawing,” she recalls. “Only this plan was to be executed in silk.”

When Lovell fly fishes for trout, she studies the rocks, the patterns of moving water, and the surrounding foliage, enriching a mental repository of imagery that inevitably impacts the designs she devises. “Sam works in the Berkshires and I visit frequently,” she says.

“I’m always inspired by that environment and, in general, by things in the natural world.”

She rattles off other favorite Twill fabrics, each with a name, like that of the Snake fabric, that reveals her affinity for nature-driven locales, materials and creatures: Stockbridge Strie, which undulates from dark to light, manipulating one’s sense of the architecture of a space; Gooseye, a linen upholstery-weight fabric with variously sized diamonds resulting in a powerful rhythm; and Horsehair, which mimics the complexity and sophistication of its real-life source via a horizontal stripe across striae. “Horsehair is a wonderful example of nature creating exactly what we needed,” says Lovell.

Her pride in the Twill fabrics extends beyond their visual beauty rooted in nature; it stems equally from their protection of environmental integrity. The Climatex Lifecycle Home collection sports an earthy palette and safeguards individual and planetary health. “Forty per cent of the Twill fabrics carry a Cradle-to-Cradle Gold Status for sustainability,” says Lovell who attends many of the field’s leading conferences on the subject.

“We are very lucky to have a group of weavers who are not only happy to create a hand-woven look but also to use non-carcinogenic dyes in an industry that is riddled with toxins.”

For Lovell these are very exciting times in terms of design and technique and reinvention. “There are thousands of ideas that need to be brought to the fore,” she says. “Key among them are those that advance the industry and give something back. I’ll be directing my attention to those.”