Introducing Jubilee by Hella Jongerius, the final textile in the renowned industrial designer’s twenty-five-year collaboration with Maharam.
Drawn to Jongerius’ experimental design approach, which often references elements of handmade variation or imperfection, Maharam first invited the designer to explore textiles together in 2001. The resulting upholstery, Repeat (2002), challenged the bounds of industrial production while forming the foundation of an enduring collaboration. Across two decades and over forty products, Jongerius and Maharam’s design studio have translated craft techniques to serial production, reinterpreting an artisanal ethos for commercial performance and scale. “Hella is a force,” says Maharam design manager Allyn Yu. “She has such vision, and everyone can feel it—both in how she’s challenged our studio and the industry more broadly. It’s a privilege to have worked with her.” “There is power in working with people for a long time,” Jongerius says of the decades-long dialogue, “You grow together and only need half a word. It’s a generous exchange.”
At a moment of reflection in a career defined by rigorous multidisciplinary exploration, Jubilee pays homage to the Dutch designer’s longstanding work with textiles. Drawing upon Jongerius’ extensive archive, the design echoes her 2016 treatise with Louise Schouwenberg, Beyond the New. “There is value in continually re-examining what already exists,” Jongerius and Schouwenburg write, “delving into the archives, poring over the classics.” Jubilee reinterprets motifs and techniques from throughout Jongerius’ body of work in textiles—from Repeat’s houndstooth to the detailed machine embroidery of textiles Layers (2008) and Borders (2011), to Eden’s (2014) contemporary flora—with intricately stitched insect motifs that reflect Jongerius’ profound reverence for the nonhuman world. “Within their quiet flutter and scurry,” Jongerius says, “lies the pulse of a fertile world and a promise that life will return.”
Jubilee’s construction of mercerized cotton and worsted wool offers a luminous surface and tailored hand. Across an archetypal, mid-scale houndstooth, four tonal colorways include soft pearl and cream, silvery taupe, rich mahogany, and olive with evergreen with intricate embroidery in bright, mineral, and metallic shades, from kelly green to citrine and burnished copper.
About Hella Jongerius
Hella Jongerius (b. 1963, the Netherlands) is one of the world’s leading industrial designers. Working from her Arnhem-based studio, Jongeriuslab, she has continually fused industry to craft, high technology to low, and tradition to the contemporary by reintroducing an artisanal hand to the industrial process throughout her work with furniture, ceramics, and textiles. After Jongerius graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven (the Netherlands) in 1993, the Dutch design collective Droog produced much of her early work, and she went on to develop in-depth relationships with companies such as Vitra, IKEA, Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory, and the Japanese design firm Cibone. Jongerius’ work can be found in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; the Museum of Modern Art; the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen; and the Stedelijk Museum, among others. Hella Jongerius: Whispering Things, a major retrospective at Vitra Design Museum in 2026 with support from Maharam, is on view at Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MK&G) through June 2027.