What's new: Artek’s Zebra in a new brown shade
Zebra has decorated Artek's furniture since the 1930s. This autumn, the black-and-white classic gets a brown-and-white companion.
THE STORY of 's Zebra fabric begins a hundred years ago in the 1920s France, where animal patterns were finding their way into homes.
Early interiors used real animal hides, but the markings were soon copied as woven and printed patterns, as they were cheaper to make and easier to use. Art Deco was the look of the moment, and zebra stripes fitted right in with its bold symmetry and strong contrasts.
The Tankki armchair in Zebra is one of the most recognisable Artek pieces. Alvar Aalto designed it for the 1936 Milan Triennale.
A little over a decade later, in the mid-1930s, Aino and Alvar Aalto were criss-crossing Europe in search of new influences for their architecture and design work. It was Aino who found Zebra. In the travel diary she kept on that trip, she mentions a zebra pattern she had seen in a Paris department store.
The stripes were exactly Aino's kind of pattern. Her style was clean and modern, and she often softened it with natural materials and shapes borrowed from nature.
She ordered a length of the fabric sent to Finland, and as Artek's design director and head of its interior design studio, she was well placed to do something with it. When Artek opened its first shop in Helsinki in 1936, the furniture on display included Aalto pieces upholstered in Zebra.
Zebra fabric is woven using a double jacquard technique.
The two woven layers give Zebra its intriguing texture, and make the fabric hard-wearing, too.
The Zebra pattern has stayed with Artek ever since. This autumn it arrives in a second colourway: the same familiar stripes are now dressed in brown.
The pattern has lost none of its playfulness, but the earthier tones make it easier to live with, and they may well win over anyone who has found animal prints a little too loud until now.
The designer is unknown, and the pattern has changed a little along the way, but Zebra is still one of Artek's best-loved designs.
The new brown-and-white Zebra is not just for furniture. It also decorates on accessories and home décor.
The brown-and-white Zebra is available across Artek's upholstered furniture, as well as in home textiles and accessories.
See also:
Published on 4 Sep, 2026
