November 2009 • Materials
Pleasing Pleats
Bart Halpern partners with Pulp Studio to create a new treatment for his signature textiles.
By Kristi Cameron
On the surface, the collaboration between the textile company Bart Halpern and the architectural-glass manufacturer Pulp Studio appears to be one of opposites: East Coast meets West Coast, soft meets hard, decoration meets structure. But dig a little deeper and commonalities begin to emerge. Halpern, like Pulp’s founders, Bernard and Lynda Lax, has roots in the fashion industry. And both businesses manufacture at home: Halpern in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and Pulp in Los Angeles. “It was definitely a meeting of the minds,” Halpern says of developing the Bart Halpern Collection—which sandwiches his textured fabrics between two sheets of glass—for Pulp Studio.
The Laxes, who have laminated many textiles for custom jobs, were thinking of producing a recession-friendly ready-made line when a client specified Halpern’s Cascade sheer for a glass wall. “We’d never seen it before, and it looked so nice,” Bernard says. “The wrinkles really help counterbalance the rigidity of the glass.”
Halpern first dabbled in pleats in the late 1980s, when he was commissioned to outfit the studio of Leslie, a couture designer known for the folds in her creations. The demand for the Leslie-inspired tex-tiles was so great that by 1996 Halpern had entirely devoted his business to them. Today he has 26 pleat patterns, available in everything from sheers to a black-out fabric, with backings suitable for drapes, upholstery, and wall-coverings. This month Pulp began offering nine of those pleats in five subdued, earthy colors. “Even though tangerine looks wonderful in the glass, there’s something more permanent about glass products,” Halpern explains. “If a citrine color was used for curtains, well, that’s less of a commitment.”
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Manufacturer
Pulp Studio
3211 South La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90016
(310) 815-4999
www.pulpstudio.com
PROPERTIES
All panels—which qualify as Category II safety glass—are fabricated to size and can be produced with holes, notches, and edge work.
COMPOSITION
A composite bonded material with two layers of glass, a polymer interlayer, and a textile substrate
APPLICATIONS
FRCH specified Halpern’s Cascade sheer (shown here) for a glass wall
at the new Hotel 32, on the top floor of the Monte Carlo, in Las Vegas. Other uses include partitions, privacy panels, frameless entry doors, skylights, shower doors, cabinets, ceilings, countertops, displays, lighting
fixtures, and signage.
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