Knitting men

Andrea Brena and Bauke Knottnerus; tough men that prove knitting is not just women’s work!

Andrea Brena threw his knitting needles aside and started his arm knitting project with the collection Knitted Army as a result. The collection was born from Brena’s decision to take a year from his bachelor programme at the Eindhoven Academy to ‘see what life was like outside the bubble [of the academy]‘ through exploring his own understanding of design. Reviving the art of arm-knitting was the outcome of this, in which the craftsman reuses discarded fabric strips from textile factories in Italy to knit into carpets, pillows and chairs using only his arms as a guide. Each piece is produced from leftover cloth where the cushions and seats are stuffed with the same scrap material.

Phat Knits series by Rotterdam-based designer Bauke Knottnerus are large-scale knitted design elements, created with oversized PVC needles to weave the huge threads together. This synthesis of art, fashion and furniture gives gigantic and spectacular knitted pieces. He explains that his pieces can be seen as research, “These things I make could end up as furniture or as textiles, it’s more like creating media that can be used to construct a coat or a carpet or a curtain.”



Textiles