Sina Pearson: Walking the High Line

Inspired by her first stroll along Manhattan’s High Line, textile designer Sina Pearson returned to her office with a new line of patterns in mind.

“Like any other smart New Yorker, I was blown away,” she says “It was sunny, and people were promenading – seeing and being seen, and just experiencing that unique quality of being on the second floor and looking at everything.”

The experience changed her perspective mightily.

“I got back and I wanted to convey the excitement of the place – to show what urban development can do in a neighborhood or a city,” she says. “It’s a real gift to the city.”

She started thinking about what intrigued about the experience – the patterns, the existing tracks and the railings, and the architectural grittiness – but also the new buildings and the patterns in their windows.

“It was a dichotomy of energy that I wanted to explore in this collection,” she says. “I wanted magenta and orange and bright turquoise, combined with black and white and gray, because of the urban aesthetic.”

Earlier this week she unveiled “Walking the High Line,” a line of four patterns in 20 color ways. It’s meant for commercial use in corporate headquarters, healthcare facilities, hotels, hospitality and educational spaces. It should be a natural for banquet rooms, lobbies and atriums.

Like the High Line, it’s on a very large scale. The train tracks and windows are all represented in geometric, graphic patterns.

“It’s chockablock, like the buildings next to each other and windows next them in energetic patterns,” she says. “It’s like a façade that’s elegant, with mixed scale patterns that are very urban and grid-like.

Introduced three days ago, the samples are already flying out the door.

“We think it’ll be very successful,” she says.

Chances are, she’s right.

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