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Tuesday, May 12th
Megan Zetlmaier presenting Luum's Second Sight Collection designed by Suzanne Tick.
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Ren DeCherney: All right. Hi everyone. It is Tuesday, May 12th. I am Ren. I'm the new face of the Source Snack Breaks, and today is an exciting day. It is my friend Lisa's birthday, Megan and I have a mutual friend in common. Her name is Lisa in Seattle. So we're saying “hey” to Lisa today: Happy Birthday. So I'm going to give you a quick orientation of this webinar tool before I introduce our guest. You're all muted automatically, but that doesn't mean that we are going to be the only ones talking - you have access to the live chat where I can see what you guys are all saying. Some of you are saying hello already so you can drop in some emojis or ask questions & we really encourage you to do that if you have any questions use the chat and we'll try to answer them in real time. But if we don't get to it will cover it at the end. A recording of this presentation will be sent to you after we wrap up so you can share with friends or you know, bury it in your inbox. Whatever you feel. If you miss anything or you want to come back to it you absolutely can. So I'd like to introduce you to today's guest. This is Megan from Luum. She's one of our favorites, she's up in Seattle and she's going to be talking to us about some textiles from a new collection from Luum. So I will say hi to Megan, let's do a little intro. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your Quarantine Zone?
Megan Zetlmaier: I'm Meghan Zetlmaier I've been with Luum since the beginning which is been four years now. So it's a relatively new company, but a great one at that. This is this is my dining room table that I have laid out a lovely display for you all to see what the collection would look like if I was doing it for you all live. This little guy over here is my seven-year-old son who I have been homeschooling during this time, which I'm sure some of you can relate balancing that work / home school schedule which is interesting. We're having an argument. Yeah, exactly. Right not sure how he feels about having me as a teacher but we're rolling through it. Yeah, so that's him on his Zoom call one of his first Zoom calls with his friends for our classroom meeting.
RD: Can you tell us a little bit about Luum as a company first before we get into this make sure everybody is up to speed?
MZ: Yeah sure. So Luum Textiles is a company that is has our design director, which is Suzanne Tick and if you guys are not familiar with her she is a weaver by trade. She is an artist as well. But one of the things I love most about Luum textiles is there’s really kind of this hand quality to it. Everyone in her Studio, there's four designers that work underneath her that work on product development for Luum and they are all weavers and every day they spend 30 minutes weaving to really understand the fiber and the essence of what makes something a textile and how that's going to look, so they really do see things and then they work from there on trying to work with the contract market and getting to bring it to you so that meets the high performance grades.
RD: That is amazing. I love that!
MZ: Me too. So let's get into this collection called Second Sight and it has a really cool backstory.
RD: Can you tell us a little bit about about this artist?
MZ: Yeah, so, okay. So Second Sight… this was our first collection into the 2020 years as a little play on words with 20/20 vision is what the Second Sight kind of play on words was, and it's also trying to promote…Suzanne was really trying to put some positive energy into the environment. So there's a lot of color and depth and texture and just warmth and really putting some optimism out there. We could all use that right now! Every bright cheery color I can get! And then besides that there is this lovely artist Hilma af Clint. She was a big inspiration behind this collection and she was a modernist in the time of the early 1900's kind of with Kandinsky, Mondrian, but nobody really had heard of her one because she was a woman during In that time -
RD: love that
MZ: - and they weren't very promoted. Another she really did a lot of meditation and mystic work and I think that time that wasn't very widely accepted as well. So a lot of her work she just kind of kept under wraps and during her lifetime. She ended up doing two over 1,200 pieces of art. Wow. I mean, unbelievable amount of beautiful work and she had this stipulation that no one could see her artwork ’til 20 years after she had passed. Yeah. She didn't think that that era was ready for her work. So then fast forward it was sent down to family that probably didn't know what to do with crazy grandma's art and they weren't small, some of them were like 20 by 40 in scale like there's some really big pieces. I was just like, I can't Imagine having this artwork stored and opening it up 20 years after her passing and finding this and thinking Oh My God, what do I do with it? Yeah.
Anyway fast forward and she ended up a few years ago. She was in the Guggenheim. I mean, they ended up with a foundation for her, but she had a beautiful display in the Guggenheim in New York a few years ago. And it's just…check her out. She's fascinating her work is beautiful and you can see like her colors are really on trend with what’s going on today, some of these beautiful lavenders and bold colors and it's really fun to see. And then the other board where you see all those like pinned up little things that's just a process board and finding color and seeing how that's kind of moving through from different areas in the world. And so they always have one of those in the studio in progress. Yeah. So that was kind of a little bit of the background of the collection.
RD: Where is Luum is located?
MZ: Luum is located in Toronto. In Canada.
RD: Our founder is also Canadian so we love that!
MZ: And then Suzanne Tick is located in New York.
RD: Yeah, so the hands-on design process all happens in Toronto?
MZ: Actually that happens in New York…the design development all happens in New York. And then the rest of it with the nitty-gritty details happens in Toronto.
RD: Yeah, so can you tell us a little bit about the different fabrics that are in this collection?
MZ: So there's four different patterns in this collection - beautiful yellows and blues and grays that are happening in that upper corner there that is called Construct and that is our wool in this collection, and there are I think approximately about 28 different colors. That's another thing about this collection too is we were really trying to be thoughtful about the type of content that we are putting out as well. So there's wool, rapidly renewable resources, there's a lot of recycled content as well as the Silicon. So we really are trying. They all meet the Healthy Hospitals Initiatives.
RD: Fantastic.
MZ: Yeah, and then yeah, we're trying to do all those things and keep everything with all of that. Our website also has a great thing now to that you can search by Declare and Red List Free so some of [the fabrics] meet that as well. Anyway, so Construct is this beautiful…I mean wools always take color so well and this wool is 80% wool and actually 20% nylon and some of the reason behind that is that wool has really become a hot commodity. Thanks for bringing in the mid-century modern pieces again. And so those work really well on those beautiful curvature pieces and meeting those curves, but the price of wool has gone up quite a bit because of the demand on it and just not quite enough sheep to meet the demand funny enough, but yes, that's an actual true statement. And so we've blended it with the nylon for durability so that it gets the 100,000 double rubs. But then also to keep costs down. So this comes in at $68 dollars a yard, which is a great price for a wool. So it's really got that felted feel, I like to call it the cashmere of felted wools. It's got such a lovely hand and I know that It's hard to see when you're looking on the screen. But when you get your hands on it, you'll definitely notice it.
Yeah, and then right below that we brought out… it took us two years to develop this faux leather. We really wanted to make sure that we hit it the right point on it. We wanted to make sure it had a really nice texture to it. But then also had like a very buttery hand to it and it's actually 100% silicon and we wanted to go with silicone because it's a sand derivative versus an oil base which makes it a lot more environmental, and then it also has the bonus of being naturally antimicrobial so you don't have to add any finishes. It’s bleach cleanable and also cleanable with a long list of other cleaners. We wouldn't think we would need to know about that but we do and and it works for those and we have that listed as well for you guys.
Yeah, and then the last the next one is called Flex Wool. And what's really unique is it’s got kind of this nubbly texture but it's a piece-by product that each one of the yarns… and it's a wool too… it's 41 wool 41 polyester 17 nylon, and then the cool part about it is that it's actually elastene, the 1%, and what that does is give you this really cool stretch do it. I love because when you're working with those curved pieces a lot of times nothing's approved for use on them. I'm sure you designers have run into that because I know I get those phone calls with “it doesn't work, it doesn't work”. Well a lot of it has to do with the stretch and you want just the right amount of stretch because you don't want too much stretch so that it puddles, which is another issue, but you want just enough so that it meets those curves and still lays beautifully and has that really nice textural look to it with those pieces. It has a very classic structural look, but with a tonal quality of the way the colors are so the back colors are a little bit darker and the top colors a little bit lighter for the contrast.
This last one is called vector and it's actually as a bonus is a bleach cleanable as well. But we were asked to find a mid-scale pattern that didn't look juvenile that was multicolored and high performance.
RD: So like a unicorn?
MZ: Yeah, everyone wants the Unicorn! So we tried really hard on working and developing it, and I love that is has this very kind of isometric play. So very geometric, but the color combinations in this one. You'll have to check it out you guys cuz it's got some really unique color combinations that are very unexpected but works so well together that add the sophistication level but it's bleached cleanable as a bonus, which is really great. It's $56 / yard so really well-priced. And then it's 78% recycled polyester with a little bit of nylon in it. And 75,000 double rub. So it's a really good workhorse. I think it was really beautifully shown on this little chair.
RD: Very cute! And that’s what we were talking about, that things are approved for curves. So one thing that we want to start doing in our Snack Breaks is a section we call “Help Me Help You” where we ask the rep some sort of commonly avoided things like what are things that designers should keep in mind? So designers if you can think of any questions about struggles you've had in picking out fabrics. for different applications, put them in the chat and we'll start answering them because we could just use it as like a call and help zone. So before we started this conversation you were talking about where to put color or not color. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I find it super interesting. As a designer, I never thought of that.
MZ: Yeah so it's not even using color and not color. It's I mean, we've all got to consider application and where is this being used. But I've just had some instances that I have run into where people… and I get it like light yellow is so pretty and white and all of them. Yeah, they're just so nice! But when you're in say something like a student union, and I don't care if you're only putting it on the back, I would just say let's just not and say we did because I have seen things. I mean pizza, pizza boxes, Kentucky Fried Chicken that the oil the grease…unless it's like a polyurethane or silicone or something that is WIPEABLE wipeable, those fabrics at some point… if they don't get cleaned right away, (which most of us do) and those types of environments will go a long time without being cleaned and it will take like a month for that stain to be discovered. It's going to take a lot for it to come out even with a stain repellent finish on it. So I would just say probably to avoid that in general.
RD: Okay, thinking about stain repellent finishes do you guys work with applied finishes? How should designers think about those?
MZ: We actually work with everyone so we are we don't discriminate on anyone. We love them all, we have it all listed too as far as broken out what the minimum yardage requirements are. Most of them have a 5-yard minimum minimum across the board. That's just kind of a set standard for them. And then they all have like a minimum one time charge if it's just five yards and then it changes I think about after ten yards, it gets broken down to a little less expensive but also finishes are great, green shield finishes are great, nanotech finishes. I mean, they're all they're all very similar in their properties and how they're made up and they all work. I know Alta Food and Beverage has been a really big push lately just because you get that additional moisture barrier added and it’s also just a really…it's a really strong finish on there.
RD: And do you see designers using them a lot these additional finishes? Or is there like certain places where you might not need them but certain places you absolutely should use them?
MZ: Well now it's kind of an interesting conversation, because some people, just depending on who you're working with, some people prefer not to add any chemicals and all into their environment for the environmental aspects of it and just prefer to choose fabrics that maybe more are inherently stain resistant to begin with and go that route, and then other people especially food and beverage areas…and I mean gosh in work spaces in general everyone's eating in them anymore. There's not very many spaces where people aren't eating and drinking. So I feel like there are a good amount that end up with finishes added to it. And we kind of, when we bring something to market - a collection in general - we usually have one that has a stain and repellent on it, one that doesn't have it on there, and then usually a bleach cleanable as well just to kind of meet across the board for everyone because really it's depending on what is being asked for and what's wanted.
RD: We have a question, does it affect the price?
MZ: Yeah adding Nanotex afterwards. Yeah, it does. I think it's anywhere from $5-$8 / yard depending on whether it's Alta or Nanotex.
RD: So I wanted to say thank you for coming everyone. We got some samples that you can order. We just uploaded all the new Luum collections to our website so you can use that. One more question before we go is that Luum, you guys have a lot of Red List Free products, which is really great. I know we've got some clients on the chat right now who use Red List Free. I just wanted to tell everyone that because I think it's awesome because it's really hard for textile companies to get those Red List Free labels. So thank you so much for doing that. I really personally appreciate it.