GAN Outdoor

GAN is the moniker for the textiles arm of Valencia, Spain-based furniture company Gandia Blasco Group, which began as a family business in 1941. Since then, the company has evolved into a global brand while keeping its roots firmly planted at home. (Outdoor furniture brands GandiaBlasco and Diabla also fall under the Gandia Blasco Group umbrella.)

Most of GAN’s collections are designed for indoor use, but a handful of its products have been designed specifically for the outdoors. GAN proposes various ways to enjoy its pieces in the open air. Just like their indoor counterparts, GAN’s outdoor rugs, furnishings, and accessories transcend the seasons and dress exterior spaces with style, comfort, and texture. CLIMA HOME

The use of natural materials and artisan craftsmanship are two of GAN products’ most distinctive features. Its handwoven textile designs – distinguished by eye-catching textures, colors, and patterns – are produced using traditional looms and other time-honored techniques. The process is carried out in India, where the brand upholds a commitment to social and economic development.

While GAN is primarily known for its stunning and versatile handmade rugs, it is also praised for its outstanding home accessories, including one-of-a-kind poufs, stools, ottomans, pillows, and more. Moreover, through the brand’s GAN Spaces concept of developing modular structures and accessories, its clientele can enjoy the freedom and versatility of customized, contemporary, and complete home environments as the individual’s specific needs dictate.

History

The history of GAN dates back to the early 1940s when it was a family-run blanket manufacturer. It wasn’t until the 1980s that José Antonio Gandía-Blasco Canales set out to reinvent his family business. True to the company’s origins, he developed new textile lines for the home, doubled-down on its customers’ appreciation for handcrafting, and incorporated rugs into the company’s high-quality offerings.

In 2004, José started collaborating with friend Mapi Millet; together, they formed the GAN brand, which would group Gandia Blasco’s textile productions under the same proposal. Since her incorporation, Mapi has defined the company’s trajectory, carrying out a respectful revision of traditions and manual work, and blazing a trail for the evolution of crafts worldwide.

In 2010, the GAN Women’s Unit was created in Uttar Pradesh, India; a group of embroiderers who had lost their jobs were enlisted to work on the new Bandas Collection by Spanish architect and modern-day design icon Patricia Urquiola. Since then, designers working with GAN are encouraged to include embroidery, needlepoint, or crochet in their collections so that this unit can continue to thrive. GAN collections thus benefit from the skills of these artisans, and in return, the women receive a fair salary while gaining decision-making power and financial independence.

Materials

GAN uses natural materials to employ centuries-old manufacturing processes such as hand-looming, hand-knitting, hand-knotting, and hand-tufting. The company always strives to minimize its impact on the environment, sourcing materials obtained sustainably and locally and decreasing the dyeing cycles as much as possible. For example, GAN employs both wool and jute, which are excellent insulators that cut down on energy consumption while drowning out environmental noise. Other natural materials the brand utilizes include felt, cotton, viscose, silk, and linen.

GAN also supports reducing plastic use worldwide. Some of its newer collections – including Diamond by Charlotte Lancelot – are made with recycled PET threads, which serve to divert waste from landfills, save water, and prevent CO2 emissions.

Designers

GAN’s outdoor collections undergo a precise creation process where designers collaborate directly with the expert craftspeople, researching and experimenting with traditional skills to translate them into contemporary products. Talented designers of international prestige have partaken in this exclusive endeavor, including:

• World-renowned Milan-based Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola, whose Garden Layers Collection includes outdoor mattresses, rolls, cushions, beds, and side tables made with special outdoor materials, plus fabrics that also convey the warmth of indoor spaces.
• German designer Sebastian Herkner, whose first collaboration with GAN, the Isla Collection, explores the concept of modularity and outdoor living through comfortable volumes and irregular shapes. Its three modules can be used independently or in combination to generate multiple configurations that adapt to each space.
• Brussels-born designer Charlotte Lancelot, whose new Diamond Collection of outdoor kilims is made from 100 percent recycled PET. The result offers fascinating visual effects of transparency and gradients that show that at GAN, beauty and sustainability always go hand in hand.
• Japanese design studio Nendo, who used a traditional Indian technique that works with iron interwoven into circles to create the Aram Collection of tables and stools using thermo-coated stainless-steel wire with different thicknesses.
• Japan-born, Milan-based Kensaku Oshiro, whose iconic and ergonomic lounge chair, Grapy, has now been dressed in two new fabrics suitable for outdoor use: 100 percent PES (polyethersulfone) and 100 percent solution-dyed acrylic.

“At GAN, rugs are not simply decorative objects, but rather a system of shapes and volumes that redefine the concept of habitability.”