zitozza turns 4! throwback time...

hello again - loooong time no see! i do apologise for having disappeared quite a bit. the studio has got somewhat busier but all in a good way, with markets, beautiful bespoke orders and of course, the launch of our brand new tileset (it is definitely coming in september, promise!)

what also seemed to have completely past us by, is the anniversary of our website’s launch, on the 15th august, 2020 which was already four years ago would you believe? throughout this time, this blog has grown quite a bit, so i thought it’d be a good occasion to let you in on the origin story if you’re interested.

i actually didn’t have a clear idea what this will all be when i bought the domain for zitozza in 2018, i was just working in the netherlands at a renowned design agency on a huge interior design project with a lot of italians, and one of them used this nickname for me. i thought it sounded fun, italian and designery - i could certainly see the word “zitozza” on a showroom in milan for sure (don’t laugh, it’s okay to dream - it might still happen one day!)

our first ever prints forming a placeholder background for our website before launch

indeed it was a hyper inspiring and stimulating environment and only a year after finishing my masters i was still full of dreams and ideas, although i was not quite sure what i wanted to do yet. something something brutalism, because i’m me, something something jute, because sustainability, and something something block printing because i already had some printing blocks cut for uni and i didn’t want to stop using them (because it’s so much fun)

the interest in jute and block printing came earlier, at uni, in 2016 when i had undertaken a research project about industrial heritage and dundee, because it was easier for me to research locally than to do something at the borders (i was already living in fife and working as a graphic designer.) because i was a graphic designer, i wanted to print digitally on jute, but i was warned it might not work as it is very fibrous and the printing assistant was worried about messing up his printer and that in turn got me worried about not making my project so i had a “plan b” and i quickly designed some printing blocks to get made as that seemed the easiest thing to do at home during an all-nighter should i need to…

digitally printed jute for dundee heritage project

block printed jute for dundee heritage project (created as "plan b")

block printed jute inspired by industrial landscapes

in the end, the digital printing worked out but i fell in love with the block printing process and simplifying designs into a system of elements. i loved this process so much that i used the same material and the same process again for my final masters project, the “anthropocene” treble collection. „GRIDS”, part one of three used a fresh set of industrial and traffic and logistics inspired printing blocks on jute - it was quite successful and i finished uni on such a high that lead to the amsterdam job straight away - yet somehow i still felt that i was not done with these blocks.

then of course, lots of things happened, i came back from the netherlands and found myself in 2020 when we all had to stay at home. i decided to think about it as the perfect chance to do something i always made vague steps towards but never really managed to finalise. first i took a colour and shape research in the form of embroidery, because during those times we couldn’t even travel anywhere to take photos. so i dyed some yarn and i finished an 8-part series of mini-tapestries which you can find today in the wall-art section.

then i organised my existing printing blocks and i decided to complete both the first bit, from the dundee heritage project which became the HERITAGE series, and the smaller 10×10 additions to GRIDS, which became the MODERN series, and with a lot of colours i printed day and night until the house was chocka with jute and we had to move where we now have a studio with an actual printing table (as opposed to the kitchen floor), a website, a few stockists, been on telly and some magazines and hopefully continue growing into something really quite cool and interesting to many more homes! 

anyway, this is kind of the origin story of zitozza. the rest is not yet history because it’s only just started! after just four years, the rest is still the present and the future.

a soft, wool-carpeted walk down memory lane

first of all, many thanks for following the sunday inspiration series on instagram, i’m really enjoying sharing those thoughts with you. however, you will have noticed, it has so far featured the MODERN collection only. so i want to do something different today, and i’m going to share with you some of my inspiration of my more traditional (HERITAGE) collection. some of this is obviously inspired by the rich textile heritage of scotland (and more of that later) but there is of course also the influence of hungary and this post will focus on the latter - specifically, the flatweave “torontáli” rugs, particularly those made by this one factory in the south east of the country, in a town called békésszentandrás (yeah good luck trying to pronounce that one).

the art of weaving rugs came to hungary probably with the ottoman empire in the 15th-16th centuries and slowly evolved from those oriental, turkish patterns into folk motifs suited to the hungarian taste (torontál, where this type of flatwoven rugs are thought to have come from, was a county in old “big-hungary”, today it is partly in hungary and partly in serbia.)

the rug which we understand under this name today is always a pure wool flatweave with bold colours (reds, yellows, greens, blacks), with sharp contrasts and interesting, geometric folklore patterns which have been popular from the 1880s until today. at the late 19th - early 20th century they were made by a few manufacturers for a newly emerging middle-class, however, by the middle of the 20th century it conquered the world all thanks to this one factory. this archive news report from 1955 talks about exporting it to many countries (and wrongly names békéscsaba as the town where it’s made but in reality it is békésszentandrás.)

this factory in békésszentandrás has celebrated its 100th birthday a few years ago, they started producing carpets after the first world war starting with traditional hungarian and transylvanian folk patterns. by the mid-1920s they expanded their range to oriental, persian-style rugs and became known for their quality, by then they were exporting to many countries and were a major employer, mainly of women in the region, and they kept working during the world war, after nationalisation and they even escaped the devastating de-industrialisation of the 1990s.

i genuinely believe this is at least in part thanks to these torontáli flatweave rugs that remained quite popular throughout the times. i do not remember a single house i have been to as a child, which did not have at least one of these beautiful, “pixelated” patterns, although my family does come from the region too and it was an easy access. below is a collection of some of these family treasures - the brown one was on the wall around my bed when i was a kid - it was custom-made to order with the creativity of the weavers and i think it has a variety of mottle yarns as well as natural and brown wools. the geometry of these rugs is present on the KAKTUSZ tileset in the the most obvious way, but it’s safe to say that these rugs have influenced all of it, perhaps sub-consciously.

at the end, there is also this mini-tapestry, as memory of a dance competition in the nearby town of szarvas (which has a stag in the town crest). this woven, “pixelated” graphic is quite reminiscent i think of my floral prints that also have this effect to them even though it’s printed. i think to have this woven effect emphasises the heritage influence that drives this whole collection.

apart from all these family treasures, there are plenty more. the factory store sells most of these in unchanged form, to this day, and they are all really beautiful (and exactly how i remembered) here, see all this colourful range for yourself.

i hope you enjoyed this little trip onto soft, woolly surfaces. i’m sharing with you one more archive news footage from 1972, which is about the christmas anticipations of the design trade, and it showcases not only a whole lot of beautiful (and praised) rugs by békésszentandrás-based rug artist margit szabó, but also features a lot of great design from czechoslovakia and east germany, this is truly a gem! i hope you’re enjoying getting christmas ready too despite everything.

links:

art kelim kft (factory store)

behir.hu - békésszentrandás celebrating 100 years of rug making (in hungarian)

magyarmuzeumok.hu - the torontáli rugs and the domestic industry (in hungarian)