Tina Ratzer
Weaver and textile designer
Tina Ratzer (b. 1971)
Tina Ratzer is a qualified textile designer from Design School Kolding. Ratzer has a tactile and sensuous approach to her designs, often using geometric expressions and balanced colour composition in her product designs, but always with a twist or a surprising detail that enable the artisan’s techniques to come to the fore. She uses the interaction between the textile craft and our high-tech world, which gives her designs a modern expression in a recognisable language. Since 1999 she has worked from her own studio in Copenhagen.
Silkeborg Uldspinderi’s “House designer”
Since the success in 2008 when Tina Ratzer created the Twist a Twill throw for us, the designer and weaver has enjoyed a unique status in our company “We are thrilled to be able to resume our working relationship with Tina Ratzer. She was originally the person who opened our eyes to the importance of working with a capable designer and artisan when she created the Twist a Twill plaid for us. We learnt a lot from this and we’re pleased to be able to draw on Tina’s huge knowledge within textiles and weaving once again. Moreover, her designs have the unique quality that they completely hit the spot in terms of Silkeborg Uldspinderi’s DNA,” concludes Jesper C. Olsen owner of Silkeborg Uldspinderi.
Tina Ratzer adds: “My collaboration with Silkeborg Uldspinderi is built on trust in its professional competence. I have free rein to develop a pattern in a quality I believe in. The company has a unique knowledge of raw wool and processing, and they don’t compromise when it comes to the appearance and feel of the finished product. I just couldn’t find a better match in terms of my principles and values,” says Tina Ratzer.
Plain but interesting
Tina Ratzer’s new design in 100% wool is in many ways a characteristic Ratzer design. She manages to strike a fine balance between producing something commercial, whilst always adding a twist and something that has not been seen before. With references to a classic chequered plaid, she has gone for something recognisable, but with a playful and rhythmical expression in mind – which is reflected in its name: Plain Beat.
Plain Beat is jacquard-woven, which makes it possible to develop a figurative pattern. The yarn switches between the top surface and the underside where the squares change colour. This causes a diverse reflection of light, which in turn means the colours play in different tones. There are thereby also two different colours in the same square – on each side – and this gives both more tones and a play of colours.
Tina Ratzer explains her source of inspiration: “Chequered patterns have always fascinated me and, as a weaver, working with such patterns is quite natural. The inspiration for the design originates from a number of sketches in several shades that have been hanging on my door for many years. They were from a decorative work I produced for the Danish Design Centre in 2004. The work in question, which was 100 m2 in size, was pixelated in its expression like huge wickerwork of lengths of textiles of 10 cm in width. It was a sort of oversized canvas weave”, concludes Ratzer.
