Neo Noir
It started with that scene in Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye where Elliot Gould’s rumpled private detective leaves his apartment to buy cat food and is immediately surrounded by fetching, topless neighbors asking him to pick up brownie mix. That stately Art Deco apartment terrace teeming with tanned, yoga-practicing hippies (with the munchies) identified the mood we’d been chasing when we first started designing repeat patterns: somewhat casual, sun-faded adaptations of movements known for their ostentatiousness or sense of melodrama. The 1970s Art Deco revival. Elliot Gould as Raymond Chandler’s iconic Phillip Marlowe, or Dennis Hopper (or Alain Delon) as Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. Neo-Noir celebrates repetition and how it evolves with each reemergence - in design, style, genre, and in our own work.
We thought it only fitting to create dioramas filled with layers of matching repeats for our first collection of repeat pattern rugs. And where better to highlight matching textiles - and the Neo Noir genre – than vintage motel rooms?
The Long Goodbye: A detective stumbling through Southern California looking to clear his best friend’s name
Purple Noon: A budding friendship turns into a lethal case of stolen identity
The American Friend: A casual snub lets to unimaginable consequences
La Piscine: An idyllic summer vacation brings long buried jealousies into deadly focus
Photography: Jonathan Hökklo