Sandy Chilewich.
According to Sandy Chilewich, one of her biggest motivators is to create “a new function from something familiar,” which is exactly what she did with her award-winning Raybowls. Made from a simple steel frame covered in a stretch fabric derived from her previous endeavor, the highly successful leg wear company HUE, the soft and flexible Raybowls bring a refreshing and fashionable function to the traditional table and showcase Chilewich’s talent for looking beyond the obvious.
Trained as an artist, Chilewich began experimenting with natural and synthetic materials by pushing their physical and functional limits. With the success of the Raybowls, Chilewich moved on to transform the modern floor surface. Her new line of floor coverings, called Plynyl, is a woven vinyl surface that is soft, flexible, yet extremely sturdy and washable. The result of an intensive research process, Plynyl won Chilewich the coveted Editors Award at the 2001 International Contemporary Furniture Fair. Inspired by new technologies and innovative applications of materials, Chilewich has truly brought something new to the table, and now to the floor.