Jaali and Maya

Maya and Jaali are textiles designed by Doshi Levien for Kvadrat, each exploring structure, light and colour through distinct techniques. Maya is a rhythmic, airy curtain textile with an open structure and a light, matte expression. Although delicate in appearance, it is robust, having been constructed with a leno weave. Maya creates a shifting play of light and shadow throughout the day. Maya, meaning “illusion” in Hindi, features an open grid balanced with narrow, densely woven bands, creating the impression of a striped pattern that runs from floor to ceiling. Inspired by Indian saris, which combine different transparencies, its palette draws on discreet, graceful sari shades: gentle notes of mint and grey, understated impressions of brick and teal. “When we selected the colours, it was particularly important to us that they provided a sense of lightness, like a wash of colour to a space,” say Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien.

Jaali is an architectural woollen upholstery textile named after the Hindi word for “net” or “grid”. Viewed up close, it reveals a fine, net-like grid of hexagonal shapes – from a distance, the pattern reads as a textured surface. Woven with two unicoloured yarns, the contrast between the lighter tone-on-tone pattern and the smooth ground creates a three-dimensional play of light and shadow. Developed from the colour scales of the studio’s earlier Lila and Raas textiles, and refined from 1,500 woven samples, Jaali’s 20 colourways include subtle, unexpected, coloured neutrals.