Yarns, patterns, and Italian inspiration: an Interview with Danita Harwood
“It’s hard to explain; you almost have to see the fabric and put your hands on it to understand how stunning it is.”
NSI: I guess our first question should be about your background, so, how did you get into fabric design?
DH: Well I was an interior designer for eighteen years in Los Angeles and San Francisco, with heavy influence on fabrics which, you know, I have always adored. My husband is president of Calvin Fabrics, and we decided to move our headquarters to Medford Oregon about fifteen years ago. When we decided to do that, he was asking me to move again when we had already moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and I said “well, I can’t do interior design in Medford, Oregon, that’s all there is to it.” So I began to train with the man who had done the product development for Calvin for many years. I traveled with him to Europe and visited all the mills, and basically I got on-the-job training, that’s how I learned, and that was it, and I’ve been doing it ever since!
NSI: Wow, sounds great. So, was it your husband that started Calvin Fabrics?
DH: Oh no, Calvin is almost sixty years old. I think this is its fifty-seventh year, and my husband has been president of Calvin for just over 20 years. And so we are now part-owners of the Corporation, there are share-holders too, but it’s a very tightly-held corporation. There aren’t very many of us.
NSI: Right, I was just going to ask about that. In spite of the company being sixty years old it has stayed very small.DH: Right, yes, the ownership has stayed very tight, there’s only about four of us now.
NSI: Would you say that that’s an important part of the company to keep it small?
DH: Oh sure, yeah. It allows us to stay kind of “lean and mean” especially in times like this. We don’t have a lot of bureaucracy to go through, we can make decisions really quickly, we don’t have to have the same mark-ups as everybody, which is why out prices are so fair. You know, when you have a bigger company, you have so many more costs. We do a beautiful volume of business, but we’re just real lean. And that really translates into savings for our designers.
NSI: That makes sense. So, about your own designs, what’s the whole process? Do you start with sketches? Colors?
DH: Well, when I do pattern, most all of my patterns are inspired by nature. You can tell if you look through our collection, everything I do is very organic, coming from nature. Also, from my travels, for instance, we have something in our line called Gothic Grill. I was traveling in Europe, and I started taking photographs of all the grill-work, and I developed a pattern from a combination of a lot of my different photographs, things like that. Also, you know, where I live is so beautiful, I take a lot of my inspiration from just my surroundings, you know, the trees, rock formations, rivers, that kind of thing. So first I get inspired, and then I do drawings basically. I hand-draw everything. Then I send it off to a mill. I draw in scale what I want, and I know from my training which repeats work on which looms and that kind of thing, so I can draw something that they can pretty much just weave by putting my drawing into the computer system, and go from there.
(Gothic Grill)
"We're known in the industry for having exemplary customer service, that's the thing that's most important to us."
NSI: What about the texture of that fabric and different materials and fibers? Does that factor into your design?
DH: Usually for textures, the way that process works is that I become intrigued by some kind of a yarn, a new yarn, or twisted yarn. I work very closely with boutique mills here in the U.S., and so I have a close friendship with a lot of these people. I go in and I go through their yarn banks and start putting yarns together that I think would look beautiful, so I create textures from the availability of the different yarns. And then I have an idea sometimes in my head, I’d like something real gutsy or something really refined, so most of the time I have a direction that I’m thinking of when I start a new texture. Then I find the yarns and start building the construction. I pretty much to that almost by hand on a little hand loom. As far as linens, you know, we have a lot of linen in our line, the mills show us new constructions of linen almost every year. Then we choose a construction we like, and choose how we’re going to have it dyed, and then build color palettes. Or we’ll say ok, you know, I like this construction but I’d like to put a heavier gage yarn in that, or I’d like to add a little chenille. You know, you can just build off of a basic texture. So textures are relatively easy compared to pattern.
NSI: So would you have a particular client in mind when you were designing something?
DH: Well, I will say that I keep in touch with a lot of designers, especially in the San Francisco area because that’s where I’m from, also the older designers who have been buying Calvin for fifty years, and I really listen to what they’re asking for. If I’m our showing a new collection, and a designer says something like “remember back in 1962, you had this beautiful blah blah blah” whatever it is, texture, pattern, whatever. I might say “you know, I may not remember that because I wasn’t at Calvin then, but I have an archive that goes back clear to the very first item we ever made, so I can go research it and find it and send a little clip to the designer and if they say “yes this is it”, if I really love it and think that it may be the right time to bring something back that’s reminiscent of that, I will redevelop it new yarns that are maybe softer because a lot of the stuff from the past, the yarns were really coarse. People aren’t of that these days, they like everything soft. So sure, I listen to the designers and I try to develop things that I think they are looking for.
NSI: I’m sure they appreciate that. So going back to your travels in Europe that inspire you, is there a particular place? Country? City? That inspired you the most?
DH: (Laughs light-heartedly) Well I love Italy basically. I like France too, but Italy is my favorite. It seems like whenever I’m there, I truly am inspired by the people, the surroundings, even the food! (Laughs) You get different textural ideas just from a plate of food sometimes! Yeah, Italy is one of my favorites as far as gaining inspiration. There’s a big beautiful show that’s for our industry and it’s on Lake Como. And it has to be one of the most beautiful places, with the best energy. Every time I go there I have, I don’t know, a burst of creative energy. I love that spot.
(a view of Lake Como from http://commons.wikimedia.org/)
NSI: How often do you get to go there?DH: About once a year.
NSI: Wow that’s great! Do you take a sketchbook with you or do you mostly work from photographs that you take while you’re there?
DH: Both. I sketch, I pick up leaves, I gather rocks, I take my camera, I always come back with a heavier bag than when I left , most of it’s just rocks or something (laughs).
NSI: How many new designs would you say that you come up with every year?
DH: Well, before this huge downturn, I would say we did about thirty to forty each year. We don’t do a lot of new things each year compared to maybe the biggest companies, because we stock everything and most companies don’t do that. We stock every single thing in our line right here in Medford, Oregon. Our warehouse is a certain size, and we keep our line at a certain number of skews to keep a healthy business model basically. So we know how many skews we can actually warehouse with the amount of business that we do, it’s very scientific how we worked all that out. But a year like this, when everyone’s being a little careful, we would probably be launching about 25 new patterns. But on average it’s between thirty and forty new ones.
NSI: So I guess you’ve felt the effects of the economy like everyone else.DH: Oh sure, everyone has. But we’re a solid company, we’re real basic, so we usually do pretty well in a down market. But we’re being very cautious like everyone else.
NSI: You do have more reasonable prices than some other companies do.
DH: Yes we do. And it’s not because our quality is any less; we have the highest end products that you can buy on the planet, but like I said, it all has to do with our business model and how we run a tight ship and we don’t mark up as much as other companies.
(Lucent Linens)
“We’re very dedicated to giving a designer what they want, using the very highest quality for the best price that we possibly can.”
NSI: Right. So, do you have a favorite pattern?
DH: Hmm… let’s see. I have to say, one of the new things that we’re launching in about two weeks is a new linen called Lucent Linen, and I have to say it’s one of my favorites ever, just drop dead gorgeous. It’s so elegantly stunning but still with a casual feel to it, it’s hard to explain, you almost have to see it and put your hands on it to understand. That’s my newest favorite, but I have a new favorite almost every season (laughs).
(Shimmering Aspen)
NSI: I would imagine!
DH: Right now, I’m a purist, I really like the beautiful linens, those are my favorite things, that’s what I have in my own home. I also love the couture collection. Each one was like birthing a child (laughs) they were all so complicated and very technical, high-end weaves, so a lot of those are on my top list. But I have to say that one of my all-time favorites is our Shimmering Aspen. It’s been one of the biggest sellers ever in the history of our company, and definitely one of my absolute favorites.
NSI: Sounds beautiful. So as a fabric designer it sounds like you constantly need to keep you creative juices flowing and you’re always being inspired by new things, how does that affect your own home? Do you feel the urge to redecorate constantly?
DH: (laughs) Well, you know, everyone would like to, but that’s not really practical. But I just redid one of our homes from top to bottom; we’re almost finished with it. But yeah, you get something new and you’d love to put it on a piece of furniture, and sometimes you do if it goes with the main scheme of what you’re doing. But lots of times we just do cushions or pillows over and keep the basics. Our sofa, for instance is beautiful and it’s so versatile that all I do is change the pillows and maybe redo smaller pieces. I have a piece now in our Hypnotic which is very bold and modern so I’ll like that for probably about a year and then I’ll change it.
NSI: Right, so keep the basics neutral and change the accents.
DH: Yes.
NSI: So going back to Calvin, in such a small company, do you take on a larger role than just the fabric designer?
DH: Yes. I have a national sales manager, but I oversee the outside sales also. I go on the road with new collections, especially in the San Francisco area because we have a lot of dedicated customers there. So I’ll go down and spend a week at a time and see several of our favorite people. So yes, I’m very involved in sales and operations and I do the product as well.
NSI: Sounds like a lot of great work. One final question: what’s the thing that you most want people to know about Calvin Fabrics?
DH: Well, I would just say that we’re very dedicated to keeping stock, giving a designer what they want, using the very highest quality for the best price that we possibly can. And that we’re known in the industry for having exemplary customer service. Those are the things that are most important to us.
(Hypnotic)
“It seems like whenever I’m there, I truly am inspired by the people, the surroundings, even the food!”
Calvin Fabrics
2046 Lars Way
Medford, OR 97501
Phone: 541-732-1996
Fax: 541-732-1997
Labels: Danita Harwood
