Gabriel_175th Anniversary_Web_Spreads - Flipbook - Page 85
THE VISIONARIES
Directions,
not trends
In many industries, trend is a promise of relevance. In this team, it sounds
like a trap. Too rigid. Too short-term. Too much like running after something with no real intention. Instead, they use the word directions.
A direction is not a chase. It is a chosen line you can build along.
Every couple of years, Cenk sets a framework - “pretty precise but still
elastic,” as Maria puts it - and the team translates it into something
usable: material families, colour movements, themes you can design
inside without being overwhelmed by the endlessness of possibility.
The framework becomes a tool, and the tool becomes a shared language across the company.
That matters because the customers are not buying a fabric alone.
They are buying a system they can trust. Ildiko describes Gabriel’s
portfolio as more like a toolbox. A set of solutions that work together,
grounded in research, structured so an architect or a manufacturer
can see how options relate, not just how they look.
The direction also becomes a bridge into imagination. Instead of
dropping a piece of fabric on the table and hoping it speaks for itself,
they start with context - visuals, themes, sensory cues that make the
customer feel grounded enough to imagine where the textile could
live. The textile doesn’t have shape, they say again. So, they give it
one: a setting, a mood, a future scenario the customer can step into.
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