ADELAIDE WORKSHOPS

Jill Flint of The Living Room, Suzanne Langeberg of Defining Edges and Sharen Sandford of Style Within

Carmel Fusco of Covers and Things and Lucy Jasper

Joan Hanna presenting the window treatments workshop

Mokum Adelaide held the first of a series of interactive workshops on soft furnishings and decorative techniques for bedcovers, scatter cushions, throws and window treatments. Thank you to experts Carmel Fusco and Joan Hanna for presenting. Watch out for upcoming workshops over the next few months.

NEISHA CROSLAND

Neisha Crosland

Neisha's wallpaper and fabrics

UK textile designer Neisha Crosland is a breath of fresh air for the interiors industry. As a designer she isn't afraid of colour or large bold designs that take over a room, she designs from the heart and it shows.

All of Neisha's designs start off as paintings and drawings on canvas. As a textile designer with a fine art background, I can relate to this process and can see how it influences the end result.
This process makes her work standout amongst her competitors as youthful and creative.

Neisha's bold and outgoing sense of design have won multiple design awards. The Victoria and Albert Museum also collect her work and we are lucky to have her designs in our Mokum showrooms.

To me, Mokum and Neisha's design process and aesthetics are very much the same. Together we compliment one another and hopefully inspire interior designers to push the boundaries and use pattern more within interiors.

SYDNEY DESIGN 2010

The Sydney Powerhouse Museum is holding the annual Sydney Design Festival with a wide array of presentations and workshops involving all things design. Our design studio team received a good insight into intellectual property rights and the importance of protecting creative ideas and designs during a presentation from industry insiders last Thursday evening. Stephanie Tully, who is the head of customer experience design at Qantas, gave us a sneak preview of what new design innovations Qantas has developed to stay ahead of competitors and how they need to protect their creative inventions to keep their advantage. Have a look at the Sydney Design website to see what else is happening.

NEW MELBOURNE SHOWROOM

 

Our new Melbourne showroom has relocated just next door into a new space at 620 Burwood Road Hawthorn East Victoria. If you happen to be in Melbourne, Australia come in and check us out.

17th BIENNALE OF SYDNEY

Installations by Serge Spitzer and Choi Jeong Hwa

The 17th Biennale of Sydney has been showing around the city. Cockatoo Island is the main venue and in spectacular Sydney fashion the event is completely free. The former prison and shipyard is now an urban park and displays 120 works by 56 artists. What was most fascinating about this exhibition was the challenging nature of the venue: what is part of the island and what is art? The site hosts amazing industrial shipping remains, and former prison cells and storage buildings are transformed into gallery spaces.

My favorite exhibits were Serge Spitzer's installation 'Molecular', created from recycled steel, and Choi Jeong Hwa's installation created from kitchen colanders. Both exhibits generate a sense of randomness, filling their space organically.

NEW MOKUM WEBSITE

We're very excited to reveal our new Mokum website! After a lot of research and listening closely we believe we've delivered a clear, cohesive tool for you to use. The most exciting feature I'm sure you will agree is the ability to view our entire collection on-line and check stock availability.

The reaction so far has been extremely enthusiastic. Tiffany from Altis Architecture in Sydney said: "I’ve just been checking out the new website….LOVE IT!! Looks fabulous, what a great job they have done!! Love having full images of all the product too….. really helpful".

A.P. Design in Queensland said: "Holy Moly. You have no idea how user-friendly the new website is! Being able to search by colour or design is a freaking god send. Top work!"

BACHELOR DESIGN LAUNCH AT ASHCO

Leroy Belle with Mokum's Sarah Azar and Michael Davies

A Bachelor piece with Mokum's 'Taffeta' drapery

Congratulations to Ascho who put on a lovely event on Tuesday night for Bachelor Design's new furniture range. Some of the pieces had a Deco influence and worked beautifully alongside Ritz and Patou from our Moderne Collection. Clients' were also given a sneak preview of two of Mokum's latest draperies Taffeta and Kansai, as well as our freshly formatted upholstery waterfalls, all of which are available to view in our showrooms.

QUEENSLAND SHOWROOM EVENT

The new Brisbane showroom in Newstead

Marion from HBA and Shayne from Viva with Jocelyn and Kyah from Mokum

The team from Urban Sofa Gallery

Anna Steindl, winner of the handmade Mokum Star Tile rug with Christian Rysenbry, QLD Sales Manager

The evening of Wednesday 14th July saw a celebration of the new Mokum showroom in the historic Limestore Building at 33 Longland Street, Newstead. With live music and entertainment it was a wonderful opportunity to get together for a party.

The Mokum Queensland team would like to thank everyone for a great night and look forward to seeing you again in our new space.

PATHS TO ABSTRACTION

Piet Mondrian

Sophie Taeuber-Arp

Kupka

Patrick Henry Bruce

On the weekend I went to view the amazing Paths To Abstraction exhibition at the Gallery of NSW for colour inspiration for our next collection.

I saw works from Monet, Matisse, Munch, Paul Klee, Picasso, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and many more artists that shaped today's view on modern art.

I was surprised to read that Abstraction was never an art movement, it didn't originate in one place, and it wasn't practiced by one cohesive group of artists. Instead it evolved gradually, as artists experimented with colour, form and materials, calling into question some of the traditional functions of art, narrative and representation.

I highly recommend this exhibition. You will be blown away by how far ahead of their time these artists were. Their work still stands out and are some of the best of modern art to this day.

ABRASION RESISTANCE: THE MARTINDALE & WYZENBEEK ABRASION TEST

Mokum fabric Souk with a Martindale test result of 23,000 rubs

and a Wyzenbeek test result of +50,000 double rubs

Testing upholstery fabrics for their resistance to abrasion is one component of measuring their performance.

The two main tests to determine upholstery fabric abrasion resistance are the Martindale test and the Wyzenbeek test.

The Martindale test is mostly used in Europe and locally in Australia and New Zealand, whereas the Wyzenbeek test is part of US textile testing standards. Both tests have their validity.

The Martindale test method involves rubbing the fabric in a figure-8 motion, and the Wyzenbeek method involves rubbing along the warp and weft of the fabric.

The main thing to remember is that there is no correlation between the results of the two tests, therefore it is not possible to predict a Wyzenbeek test result for a fabric from an already existing Martindale test result of the same fabric.

To ascertain overall fabric performance it is also necessary to take into account the fabric’s pilling, seam slippage and colour-fastness test results.