Zara Home’s Second Debut With Vincent Van Duysen
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MILAN — When Inditex founders the Ortega family reached out to architect Vincent Van Duysen, the timing was just right for the two to come together in the name of Zara Home.
With this landmark collaboration, Van Duysen, who had just turned 60, decided he was ready to render his designs for the masses. Meanwhile, Zara was looking to go more high-end — hence, Zara Home+ was born, with the first collection released in summer 2022.
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“This collection is about heart and soul, and I think it is important that we are all here and to inspire and get inspired no matter what class,” Van Duysen told WWD in an interview. Zara Home+ is largely a look into Duysen’s own zen living spaces and the most recognizable elements and furniture pieces. “I was turning a symbolic number… I reflected on my status, where I stand professionally and people had been saying they wished my work was more accessible,” he continued.
Zara’s Marta Ortega first met Vincent four years ago in Antwerp, Belgium.
Van Duysen’s creative contribution mirrors the high-fashion collaboration juggernauts like Target and H&M have inked with Missoni, Balmain and Giambattista Valli, but in true design-world fashion, this low-key Zara Home collab is a boost for the global retailer as it strives to show critics it is on track to meet its sustainability goals and is focused on procuring the best materials possible without disappointing on retail value.
The Flemish creative’s eponymous architect studio, founded in 1989, is credited with forward-looking offices and residences that span the globe from Antwerp to Singapore, L.A., Thailand, India and Europe. In and around the architecture and design scene, the architect and designer’s veteran’s name is echoed far and wide.
Last Thursday, Zara celebrated its second collection with Van Duysen with a private dinner for 60 people at 610 Fifth Avenue, in a Rockefeller Center building known as La Maison Française. The collection was unveiled to the public on Friday.
Earlier this year, Van Duysen’s was luxury furnishings maker Molteni & C’s first outdoor collection, for which he reinterpreted works by the most important contemporary designers, including U.K. architectural firm Foster + Partners, Israeli designer Ron Gilad and the late pioneer of Italian contemporary design and architecture Gio Ponti.
Elsewhere, Van Duysen has woven his meditative spirit into the fashion world when he unfurled a collection of meditative pieces with New York City-based men’s performance line Jacques to create a tranquil yet dynamic environment “supporting the mind and body through movement and intention,” his studio said, adding that the creative process involved a sustainable, long-lasting approach to minimalist design through functionality and their use of enduring materials.
In terms of price, Van Duysen’s reputation naturally comes with a hefty price tag. Currently on the Molteni & C website, the Palinfrasca chair is priced at $9,320. By comparison, a Zara Home+ lounge chair is currently priced at $2,199. Albeit still pricey, Van Duysen guarantees that all the pieces are made with fine natural materials like stone and fine linen and with the hands of artisans he has built a relationship with over 35 years.
“Zara Home+ is an upgrade because all the materials are well chosen and the prices are a little above the typical Zara Home collection, still democratic and the quality is guaranteed. I know all the ateliers and the sources and where the products are all made; they are all small companies with real artisans in Portugal and Spain,” he reflected, adding that the integrity of each piece is important to him.
The son and grandson of a Flanders carpet maker in the tradition that peaked in the ’70s and ’80s, Van Duysen was motivated by his father to become an architect, a vocation his father, now 88, never had the chance to pursue. Later in life, the two worked side by side, his dad supporting him in the office as financial adviser.
“My mom’s side were lawyers and so I inherited creativity from my dad. He wanted to study architecture, he was an artistic person, but followed in the family footsteps with a carpet business in the Flanders,” he added.
Building on the success of the living room collection launched last year, this season’s Zara Home+ dining room range is an ode to conviviality, and to the joy of living life with balance and at a gentler pace, all born of the deepest mutual respect between the brand and the world-renowned Flemish creative. Zara said the dining room series is made with select woods and exquisite textures, with tactile materials and finishes, rendered in timeless forms that speak to comfort and simplicity.
Details include bone-white leather on stools and armchairs, sofas in a tonal palette of taupe, super white and green, with vibrancy that comes from a pink love seat. Rugs feature new monochrome finishes in the collection’s signature check including super white, alongside a darker tone featured on a new herringbone.
“Continuing the philosophy that underpinned the inaugural collection, all products have been designed to stand the test of time and to be sympathetic to evolving décor types for years to come,” the company added.
When asked what he thinks of criticism surrounding fast fashion and companies like Zara, Van Duysen says that they are still a very accessible and for-the-people brand but they are elevating their offering.
“First of all, we are all pretty much aware what’s going on in terms of sustainability and all materials are all-natural or derived from nature. In terms of waste, all of the materials are pretty sustainable, very consistent, timeless and solid in terms of how they are manufactured and obviously the method in which it recuperates waste of materials,” he said, noting that furniture is made with solid French oak and home fragrance bottles are made with discarded wood pieces that was used from the making of the collection.
From the table linens to the three-seater sofas, and from the glassware to the natural jute and campaspero accents, the collection breathes the spirit of an Antwerp home Van Duysen lived in from 1987 to 2007 and his current home in Antwerp. The collection will be sold online on www.zarahome.com and selected stores globally.
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