Unika Vaev

Unika Vaev was once a small mill in Denmark. The name – a source of endless questioning – means “unique weave” in Danish. The Unika Vaev mill was the chief supplier of fabric for the ICF Group. The quality was apparent in Unika Vaev’s products from the beginning, evident in the durability and richness of the heathered and coarse fabrics favored in the 1950’s and 1960’s. In 1975, ICF purchased the name “Unika Vaev” for its newly organized fabric division, continuing the solid tradition while expanding the range of the collection to reflect new tastes and technologies. Throughout the 1980’s, the Unika Vaev Collection grew by leaps and bounds, from the comfortable and the sensible to the most notable new ideas on the market. The sophisticated color palette of the Collection has been an industry by-word from the start. All new introductions have been designed to coordinate with the Collection as a whole with no compromise in variety. Then as now, the design industry looked forward to new introductions by Unika Vaev as harbingers of new directions. Some people were naturally astounded, then, when Unika Vaev introduced the Archives Collection in 1985, a series of historical re-creations from the early 20th Century. The fabrics of the collection were made from original drawings, some never before published, and in some cases were (and are) woven on the original looms built specifically for their manufacture. The painstaking research and reconstruction reflected the company’s philosophy as a whole. There was no desire to settle for the "look" of a classic fabric: their beauty had to be genuine and thorough rather than superficial. The result of this approach for both new and classic designs has had an extraordinary effect on the design industry. It is no longer safe to categorize styles into discrete genres. Many of the Archives Collection fabrics have been used on the most cutting edge pieces to stunning effect. Conversely, many of Unika Vaev’s more recent, fresh designs have been successfully applied on traditional pieces. Neither trendiness nor tradition qualify a design for inclusion in the Unika Vaev Collection. The only criterion is quality.