Vincent Van Duysen launches ‘most modern’ Zara Home collection

Last week in Antwerp, Vincent Van Duysen opened the doors of his private home for an industry event – the first time he has done so since buying the old townhouse 27 years ago. The intimate celebration, which gathered the Flemish architect's close friends, clients and select members of the press, marked the launch of his fourth collection for Spanish megalith Zara Home – a collaboration first unveiled in 2022, bringing Van Duysen's elevated style to a broader audience for the first time.

Arranged across the townhouse's three floors in a muted palette of oak, dark heat-treated ash, limestone, marble, leather and stainless steel, the new and existing pieces from his Zara Home collection displayed all the hallmarks of Van Duysen's signature style: minimalist yet monumental, tactile yet restrained. Rather than appearing overtly 'branded', the pieces were carefully camouflaged into the refined interiors, shown alongside Van Duysen’s own vintage furniture and collected artworks – creating something of a game of 'spot the Zara'.

In the living room, a pale yellow loveseat ('Loveseat 01' from 'Collection 01') with an elongated seat invited guests to lounge, while underfoot the new 'Rug 05' – a white, deep-pile design that begs to be touched – came perilously close to glasses of red wine. Upstairs, in the main bedroom, a wall was lit by a book-like mirror-polished steel lamp ('Spotlight 01' – one of four lamps debuting in this fourth instalment). A leather-upholstered bench with a dark heat-treated ash frame ('Bench 01') sat at the foot of the bed, in sharp contrast to the white bed linen.

But the home’s most impressive space was surely the top-floor attic – beautifully renovated into a generous suite with an exposed timber roof structure, bathed in hazy light from integrated skylights. Here, alongside existing linen-upholstered pieces in muted shades, sat a new lounge chair ('Lounge Chair 03'), its dark ash frame softened by radius edges and a padded leather seat and back.

The design process, Van Duysen says, has been a deeply personal one – providing a rare moment of introspection that prompted him to reflect on his life’s work. It began over three years ago when Marta Ortega Pérez, daughter of Zara founder Amancio Ortega and now chairwoman of Inditex, approached him with a carte blanche offer to design a collection. The answer, he says, was an immediate yes. ‘It was something I never expected them to ask me,’ he recalls. ‘I had just turned 60, and it gave me the opportunity to reflect on who I am, where I’m standing – not only as a person but also as an architect, as a designer – and ask, “what is my DNA?”’

To find out, he delved into his archive, stretching back 40 years to the beginning of his career, analysing the pieces in his homes and identifying a red thread. ‘I identified all of these pieces, revisited each one individually, and gave them a new twist,’ he explains. Once presented to the Zara team, the production process was, he says, ‘unbelievably fast and efficient’ – the first collection was turned around and photographed in a matter of weeks.

Despite this efficiency, for Van Duysen, attention to detail and craftsmanship was non-negotiable. ‘I really wanted to have this as a guarantee,’ he reflects. All the pieces are made in Spain and Portugal, with textiles woven in India – the hand of the craftsperson clearly visible in the finish. Everything, he says, is made to last a lifetime, and the quality is reflected in the price points. Unlike Zara's clothing, where a dress might cost one tenth of a designer gown, here you can expect to pay up to £6,900 for a sofa. That’s still around half the price of a comparable designer Italian sofa, but it firmly distances itself from the throwaway logic of fast furniture. ‘All these pieces, they are singularly crafted by craftspeople. And you can feel that. You can see that the materials are really beautiful.’

In positioning itself at this more elevated tier, Zara Home is doing more than just showcasing design credentials. It reflects a wider shift: home brands across the spectrum – from mid-market players like Ferm Living, Soho Home and Hay to mass-market giants like Ikea (whose ‘Stockholm’ collection launched at Milan Design Week this year) and H&M – increasingly leaning into the language of ‘quiet' or 'affordable luxury’ in an attempt to reposition themselves, aesthetically at least, as purveyors of permanence.

Van Duysen’s fourth collection aligns neatly with this direction. While part of the ongoing series, it introduces a slightly more modern sensibility – most notably through the introduction of polished stainless steel and contemporary typologies such as a clean-lined modular sofa system. ‘My world is very sensorial,’ Van Duysen told Wallpaper* at the launch party. ‘I’m a modernist, a modern soul as well, even though I’m also conservative and like traditional furniture too.’

For Zara Home, what began as something of an experiment has grown into a global success – introducing larger-scale pieces to its audience for the first time and marking a turning point in the brand’s identity. ‘In my opinion, it’s brought in customers who may not have paid attention to Zara Home before Vincent,’ says Héctor Barrantes Torrús, from the brand’s Marketing and Communication team. ‘And I think, especially since the pandemic, people are more invested in their interiors. They’re willing to spend on something that feels crafted – something that carries meaning and quality.’

Available from zarahome.com from 12 June and in selected stores.

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