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London is gearing up for a display of textile fireworks later this month, when textile artist Cafe Facet and his collaborative design show go on display at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey.
“Kaffe Fassett: The Power of Pattern” opens on September 23 and will feature more than 70 textile patterns – mainly quilts – and centuries-old crafts such as knitting, needlepoint and patchwork.
The exhibition aims to “caffeinate the artistic eye” through a fascinating visual experience, said curator Denis Notdruft, the museum’s head of exhibitions, who worked with Newham College London on the exhibition.
Color, pattern and texture are at the center of this expansive display if California-born Fassett, 84, is a flower boy. He began his career as a painter and later moved into knitwear design, working with names such as Bill Gibb, Missoni and Designers Guild.
Since then, Fassett has focused on 3D textile design and is known today for her brilliant quilts and inspiring people around the world to pick up their crafting needles and fabric squares and get to work.
“He’s a rock star of the textile world, an artist who makes people see the world in a different way. And he inspires people to make things,” says Notdruft.
Fassett spent his childhood in Big Sur, California, drawing inspiration from the state’s stunning beaches, mountains and nature in his early years. He has lived and worked in London since the early 60s, where he and his collaborators work from a home and studio known as the Color Lab.
Notdruft said the exhibition is not a retrospective of the artist’s work, but an entry into the world. It is designed so that visitors can “fall into the beautiful mirror” of Facet’s design and other creators around the world within the team and its followers.
“People’s response to the work is almost visceral — it blows them away,” said Notdruft, who wrote the book about the show, “Cafe Facet: An Artist’s Eye” (Yale University Press).
The timing is right, Notdruff added, adding that Fassett is “one of the most intelligent and influential textile artists alive today.” Throughout his long career, Cafe has inspired people around the world to work and experience color and pattern in exciting and innovative ways,” he said.
In the year Zandra Rhodes, who founded the Fashion and Textile Museum in 2003, says Fassett has a cult following and always has people “lining up around the block” when one of the shows comes to town.
“Cafe crafting is a living art, and it’s helping the craft survive,” says Rhodes, who first met Fassett through Gibby in the late ’60s. She said life and work have taken on new energy since COVID-19, when many people turned to manual labor during the lockdown.
For the past 30 years, Fassett has worked with a team of textile designers, including owner and manager Brandon Mabey and Philip Jacobs, developing printed textiles under the Cafe Fassetti Collective umbrella.
Fassett says he believes “it’s the best vehicle to express the magical properties of color,” and the exhibit showcases the power of printed textiles.
The exhibit opens in the museum’s foyer, where “bright color and texture” greets visitors as they walk through the door, Notdruft says. One section of Facet Fabrics will be a “tent area,” featuring a video of the artist discussing textile design with collaborators Mabley and Jacobs.
The ground floor gallery focuses mainly on quilts by Fassett and other artists, while the main gallery features a giant quilt on the floor, which Rhodes describes as an “explosion of color and pattern.”
Upstairs, the floor is covered with a textured design, and the room is filled with creations created by the Fasets collaborators, who work especially with appliquéd quilting.
There will also be clotheslines adorned with fabrics from Café Fassett and a needlepoint wall decorated by Mable and Fassett.
Quitters have sent work from Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, Africa and Taiwan to create a dynamic display. An entire room is plastered with images of hand-painted designs by Cafe Facet Collective.
There will also be an exhibition showing the facet process of the fabric used in the London quilt. Early in his decades-long career, there remains a room full of Fassett’s paintings.
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