A trip to Marrakech for a friend’s wedding turned out to be the catalyst for Shanan Campanaro’s latest body of work. A lover of color and travel, as apparent in textiles from her 10-year-old design studio, Eskayel, the Central Saint Martins alum was naturally drawn to the vibrant city. “It was a very sensory experience,” Campanaro recalls. “We’d go up on the roof at dusk to watch the sky turn pink—the same color as the houses.”
Experiences like that informed Eskayel’s latest iteration of its Jamaa series, Jamaa II—which launches this week during New York’s Architectural Digest Design Show—in which muted, abstract interpretations of Morocco’s geometric cityscape are applied to Belgian linen and wall coverings. Each pattern doubles as a mural, a first for the designer. Campanaro, together with artists Briana DeVoe White and Olivia Provey, painted the images using a light wash that is drawn over in pen, then filled in with ink and water, to create a soft composition of blended colors. The collection marks a departure from the nature-inspired imagery that had previously defined Campanaro’s work; it also includes a series of jacquard woven fabric and a selection of hand-knotted Tibetan cross-weave rugs, Eskayel’s largest to date, that will debut during NYCxDesign in May.
Fear of the unfamiliar has never given Campanaro pause. “What I really want is to be a designer and creative who can develop my style and try new things,” Campanaro says, hinting at more exciting and intricate pieces to come. “I want to position myself as an innovator with longevity.”
