Old lace - new trick

Camilla Skøtt is a textile designer. She doesn’t know how to sew or knit but she knows how to become inspired and what has inspired her recently is a craft filled with so much pride and tradition that it is being exhibited at the Danish Design Museum. Bobbin lace is the name.

Camilla Skøtt doesn’t know how to make bobbin lace either but she is fascinated by the time and effort that you have to put into the craft. She has now put the same time and effort into designing a table for Design School Kolding’s exhibition The Tube, which will be presented during the Milan Design Week.

- Nobody makes bobbin lace anymore but it is a beautiful craft and valuable because of the time and care it takes to make. Bobbin lace table cloths were only taken out and used on special occasions, and I think it is fascinating to combine an old craft with new technology, says Camilla Skøtt, who graduated from Design School Kolding in the summer of 2014.

Even though Camilla Skøtt is a trained textile designer she chose to dedicate her MA studies to furniture design and her graduation project was a dining room table made with the advanced intarsia technique, only used by the company Intarsia on the Danish island of Funen.

Carved in…water
This time the 29-year-old designer is working together with Forbo Flooring and the collaboration has been quite nerve-racking, she says. While the table and table top is produced in the Netherlands, she has been in Denmark and in charge of the design and the drawings. The carvings have been made using an aqua-jet, which is a hard water beam – a technique that Forbo Flooring specialises in. Camilla Skøtt has only been able to track the process through images but she is very proud of the result.

- When I saw the top for the first time, I had butterflies in my stomach. But it’s perfect, Camilla Skøtt says.

The bobbin lace is carved in linoleum, which is a new material for Camilla Skøtt and one that she has grown very fond of.

- Linoleum is a natural, warm and sustainable material that has a nice feel to it. The table is for display and not for use because the pattern holes are not filled. We want to show the various layers of the material and therefore we have just smoothed off the rough edges, Camilla Skøtt explains. She looks very much forward to showing her table in Milan.

- We started the work in December, and the process has been hugely exciting. I’ve learned about materials and new techniques but I’ve also enjoyed working with a large company. This has been a really nice experience, says Camilla Skøtt.

The Tube opens on Wednesday 15 April in Milan and is called ’Honey, we need to talk’. The theme is ‘the table’ and the exhibition consists of seven containers. Eight designers are involved.