Wooden textiles

Lenneke Langenhuijsen is a textile designer and teacher who forms half of Buro Belén, an Amsterdam-based design studio, along with her design partner Brecht Duijf.

Langenhuijsen was fascinated by a cloth made of wood fibre called tapa, which is traditionally produced in the Pacific Islands. Pacific Islander women create the cloth by harvesting the thin layer between the mulberry tree’s bark and stem, making sheets of it, and pounding it with a wooden mallet. Little water is used, and only natural materials are applied to glue the sheets together and form a stiff cloth. Together with Duijf, Langenhuijsen researched the material, discovering that if it is embroidered with mulberry silk from the same tree, it can withstand washing at 60ºC. When washed with a certain solution, the potato starch washes out, allowing the Wooden textile to be dyed. It can also be lasered, stitched, printed and shaped.