Museum De Lakenhal breathed new life into the history of ‘Leids Laken’ [Leiden Cloth0 by commissioning artists and designers to develop new woven woollen fabrics that can bear the old ‘Leids Laken’ quality trademark. In 2014, visual artist Christie van der Haak designed the first fabric in collaboration with the TextielLab.
For centuries, Leiden was renowned for its high-quality woollen fabrics. To honour this impressive textile tradition, Museum De Lakenhal asked five designers to develop new patterns. The selected designers were given unrestricted access to the museum’s textile collection and were commissioned to create a contemporary design that aligned with the museum’s identity: classic and stylish as well as distinct and contemporary. Kicking off the series was Christie van der Haak, who was inspired by the colourful and exotic motifs she discovered in the Leiden collection. With the help of the public, the museum selected two fabrics from her samples, which were then put into production. The fabrics were first presented to the public during Wool Week 2014 in Amsterdam.
In the TextielLab, and with support from Woolmark, Van der Haak got creative with different bindings, yarns and finishes. The fabric, like the Leiden Cloth of old, had to be of a very high quality in terms of material, technique and artistic expression.
Van der Haak (The Hague, 1950) studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. After graduating, she focused on painting ornamental patterns before she turned to designing and weaving fabrics. She won the 2015 Ouborg Prize, which recognises the oeuvre of artists from The Hague. In 2016, she wrapped the facade of the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami with fabrics she developed in the TextielLab.
