Fabric Light

New Typology of Light

Fabric Light proposes a new typology of light: one that is not only seen but felt. Warmth is woven into the light, inviting the atmosphere to echo the intimacy of fabric against skin. Suspended within the installation space is a series of pendant luminaires, each encased in ByBorre’s innovative three-dimensional knit structures. Crafted through a meticulous process of digital design and responsible fibre engineering, these textiles embody a deep commitment to sustainability, utilizing recycled materials, traceable yarns, and waste-conscious production. More than surface, they become a living envelope: absorbing sound, filtering ambient light, and responding subtly to shifts in perspective. The luminaires come alive, breathing softly, shaping a singular experience born of sustainable processes and mindful materiality.

Rather than treating upholstery as surface decoration, the ByBorre textile becomes an active component of the light’s function and form, mediating between softness and structure, warmth and precision. The knit’s tactile depth diffuses the luminance within, creating an aura that blurs the boundaries between object and atmosphere.

A Belief in Sustainability

At the heart of this collaboration is Hollis+Morris’s unwavering commitment to environmental stewardship. The Canadian studio has built its reputation on crafting lighting and furniture that marry sculptural elegance with deeply sustainable practices, favouring local manufacturing, non-toxic finishes, FSC-certified wood, and modular designs that encourage repair over replacement. Their ethos aligns seamlessly with ByBorre’s radical transparency and material innovation, forming a partnership grounded in mutual respect for process, planet, and people. Together, they explore how sustainability can be embedded not only in materials but in the very design language of the object, where every curve, fiber, and fixture carries the weight of conscious creation.

An explorative exercise born from a shared belief in sustainability, not as a trend, but as a systemic responsibility. Each luminaire is crafted with intention, using FSC-certified wood, and ByBorre’s consciously engineered yarns, derived from recycled or bio-based fibres. The result is not a disposable object, but one designed for longevity, repairability, and lasting emotional connection.

Ritual and Presence

Furthermore, Fabric Light traces the evolution of lighting from mere function to ritual and presence. It challenges the viewer to reconsider how light touches us; not just visually, but spatially, emotionally, and materially. It also exemplifies a growing design movement that collapses boundaries between disciplines: lighting, textile, fashion, architecture, and sustainability, into a single, responsive object.

The installation embraces radical transparency by revealing the sustainable origins of components. Fabric Light makes visible to visitors the responsible sourcing behind the work: from recycled and bio-based yarns to FSC-certified wood. This quiet deconstruction invites viewers to see not just the object, but the ethical systems and material journeys that shape it.

Set within the experimental context of Dutch Design Week, the installation serves as both product and provocation: a soft architecture for a new kind of living, where design is measured not only in watts or lumens, but in empathy, longevity, and material storytelling.