Photos: Yuki Sugiura
Portuguese furniture brand De La Espada, internationally renowned for superb woodcraft, is hosting an exhibition at their Porto gallery dedicated to their collaborations with artisan weavers. The exhibition, entitled Interwoven | Entrelaçado, showcases the intersection of artisan weaving and furniture craft.
Interwoven | Entrelaçado reaffirms De La Espada’s commitment to supporting the endurance of generations-old craft methods, highlighting their expert woodcraft alongside weaving by their artisan partners. Both a retrospective and a launch, the exhibition will include De La Espada’s collaborations with weavers from the past five years and launch new work, looking toward an even more prolific five years ahead.
De La Espada furniture reflects a deep mastery of generational craft wisdom and research-driven modern design.
From one of Europe’s leading hubs of carpentry and upholstery, their furniture is shipped directly to homes and public spaces worldwide. They operate their own design studio, De La Espada Atelier, and collaborate with nine prominent international designers as well as Portuguese artisans.
The exhibition in Porto includes work born of De La Espada’s partnerships with four brands:
Fabricaal
Classic products from De La Espada’s collaboration with Fabricaal, Monsaraz-based specialist weavers of hand made Portuguese blankets, will be on display alongside launches: a new upholstery collection with a classic Fabricaal pattern in a colour palette developed by De La Espada, and special editions of select furniture integrating these new textiles.
Flores Textile Studio
De La Espada’s Arts & Crafts Cabinet incorporates a special linen textile from Lisbon-based interior design studio and textile showroom Flores Textile Studio. The linen is made by local artisans using an entirely artisanal process—from fibre cultivation and harvesting to spinning, weaving, and dyeing. At Interwoven | Entrelaçado, new colourways of the textile will launch, hand-dyed by Isabelle Ormieres.
Catarina Riccabona
Working from her loom, textile artist Catarina Riccabona uses ecological fibres like linen, hemp, and wool — either undyed or naturally dyed—as well as recycled threads, hand-weaving pieces guided by intuition. At the exhibition, one of the two Arts & Crafts Cabinets from De La Espada Atelier, for which she created single-edition textile art, will be on display.
Toino Abel
Toino Abel, a workshop located in the village of Castanheira, employs generations-old basketweaving techniques to craft handbags from junco (soft rush). The exhibition will include Twenty-Five Bedside by De La Espada Atelier, which features panels woven by the workshop.
De La Espada is deeply committed to the preservation of Portugal’s ancestral techniques, while seeking to redefine their relevance in a contemporary context.
At their dedicated workshop on Portugal’s Silver Coast, De La Espada craftspeople specialising in woodworking and upholstery combine time-honoured construction methods with thoughtful innovations. They also partner with select artisan workshops whose work they highlight in their products.
De La Espada’s cultural inquiry into craft extends beyond furniture. They actively invest in initiatives like Passa Ao Futuro, preserving ancestral techniques, Lisbon Design Week and Lisbon by Design, and recently opened Galeria De La Espada, a gallery in Porto dedicated to contemporary craft.
Galeria De La Espada, the new exhibition space in Porto, is a physical extension of the brand’s spirit, with an interesting cultural programme, which was born with the aim of fostering creative collaborations and ongoing dialogue between craftsmanship, design, and contemporary culture.
