Gretchen Bellinger

Gretchen Bellinger is recognized as one of the world’s preeminent fabric designers. So highly prized are her designs that major museums — including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art — have selected Bellinger™ fabrics for their permanent collections. Her company, Gretchen Bellinger Inc, continues to garner praise from the international press, and today boasts an array of industry awards for product design excellence, including two, back-to-back “Best of the Year” (BOY) awards from Interior Design Magazine, a 2011 “Top 101” product distinction from House Beautiful, and a “Best Overall Design” award at NeoCon. Bellinger™ fabrics are regularly featured on the pages of Metropolitan Home, Interior Design, Architectural Digest, and Veranda, among others, while her achievements have been chronicled on CNN Style, as well as in such books as Women of Design by Beverly Russell and A Century of Interior Design: 1900-2000 by Stanley Abercrombie. Bellinger was most recently profiled in an exclusive, six-page spread in ELLE DECOR. After graduating from Skidmore College and receiving her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bellinger joined the Skidmore Owings & Merrill office in Chicago. It was there — working among the likes of Walter Netsch, Bruce Graham, and Myron Goldsmith — that Bellinger first perceived a gap in the interior textiles market. By 1975, after working in sales and marketing for Knoll and V’Soske, Bellinger produced her first collection of 13 natural-fiber fabrics. The neutral palette that Bellinger conceived for this collection — greyed tones of pink, blue, and green — is today considered a key contribution to the 1970’s “post-modern” movement. The meteoric rise of the firm in the 1980s and 1990s ushered in a period of almost unbridled creativity, during which Bellinger received no less than no fewer than six Roscoe™ Awards for design excellence, and enjoyed collaborations with the likes of Giorgio Armani, British Airways, Learjet, and Levi’s. Today, Bellinger continues to challenge convention with the innovative use of synthetics, vinyl laminates, bamboo, and even woven metal. While the company’s vision remains unchanged, Bellinger continues to embrace new ideas and draw upon exciting inspirations. From 2016 to 2017 alone, Bellinger saw the release of over 30 new fabrics, from shimmering sheers (Twinkle Crinkle™ pleated sheer, The Vine Inspiration™ embroidery) and luxurious pile fabrics (Pile Icon™ velvet, On the Plush Side™ silk/bamboo pile) to reimagined classic motifs (Ripened on Divine™ jacquard, Coming Up Roses™ jacquard) to one-of-a-kind design statements (Cultured Swirl™ ribbon and pearl embroidery). Bellinger’s unprecedented success is echoed in the astonishing number of trademarked and registered fabrics and collections the firm offers. Search brochure.