Maharam Textiles
Maharam is the American textile house that made performance textiles a serious design discipline: Fabrics that take years of hard use and still look like something an architect chose on purpose. Studio 198 supplies Maharam textiles in the UK and worldwide, from its contract-grade weaves to its famous reissues of twentieth-century design. Fabric first, and fabric done properly.
A Textile House With a Design Habit
Maharam was founded in 1902 by Louis Maharam, an immigrant who started out selling theatrical fabric for stage and costume. The turn came in the 1960s, when the company committed to performance textiles for commercial interiors, and that has been its territory ever since. The work runs through the Maharam Design Studio, which researches, engineers and designs the cloth around four preoccupations: utility, technology, tradition and luxury. Today Maharam belongs to the MillerKnoll collective, alongside Herman Miller and Knoll, and its textiles sit in the permanent collections of MoMA and the Art Institute of Chicago. Not many furnishing fabrics end up in a museum.
Textiles of the 20th Century
The collection designers love most is Textiles of the 20th Century. Working from the original archives, Maharam reissues the fabric designs of some of the great modern names, Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard, Anni Albers, Gio Ponti, Koloman Moser, faithfully, in the true colours and weaves. They are the real designs, not reinterpretations. Running alongside them are ongoing collaborations with living designers such as Hella Jongerius, Konstantin Grcic and Paul Smith. So you can put a piece of genuine design history on a chair, or a fabric drawn by one of the sharpest designers working now.
Performance and Specification
Performance is where Maharam started and where it still leads. These are textiles engineered for the punishment of offices, hotels, healthcare and transport, without a hint of the institutional. For a specification, ask for the abrasion figure on the specific cloth: Maharam quotes US double-rub counts that sit right at the top of the scale, and for a UK contract job we can confirm the fire rating to Crib 5 (BS 5852) and supply the certification.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Maharam known for?
Design-led performance textiles. An American house founded in 1902, now part of MillerKnoll, Maharam is the fabric architects and designers specify, as well known for hard-wearing contract cloth as for reissuing modernist design classics. Its textiles are in museum collections, which is rare for furnishing fabric.
Are Maharam textiles suitable for commercial projects?
Very. Performance is the whole point of the brand. The contract grades are built for offices, hospitality, healthcare and heavy public use, with abrasion figures at the top of the scale, and for UK work we confirm the fire rating to Crib 5 (BS 5852) with the technical documentation for sign-off.
What are Maharam's Textiles of the 20th Century?
Faithful reissues of fabric designs by modern masters, taken from the original archives, including Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard, Anni Albers, Gio Ponti and Koloman Moser. They let you specify a genuine piece of design history rather than a lookalike.
Can Maharam textiles be used at home?
Yes. The Maharam Design Studio makes textiles for both commercial and residential interiors, and the durability that suits a hotel is just as welcome on a hard-working sofa or armchair at home.
Bring Maharam Textiles Into Your Scheme with Studio 198
Browse the Maharam collection online, or bring us the project. We run trade accounts for designers and specifiers, send memo samples so you can judge the colour and the cloth in your own light, and handle everything from a single length to a full contract order. For commercial work we confirm the abrasion and fire data on any fabric. Tell us the piece or the space, and we will get the right Maharam textile to you.
