Dogs or cats? Cats or dogs? An ancient feud

Those who have visited our studio or follow us on Instagram must have gotten to know our cat, Tsepem (a combination of bird and a soul in Hebrew). Tsepem visits the studio every day, participates in photoshoots and has an influence on our designs. Noa and Tami are huge cat lovers, and their love has affected us all, whether we liked it or not.

Nowadays it seems that everyone everywhere is a cat lover. Taylor Swift was photographed last December on the cover of TIME magazine with one of her three cats draped around her shoulders. Recently, Swift posted another photo from the same shoot when she announced that she would support Kamala Harris, signed, “Childless cat lady.” Grace Coddington, the creative director of American Vogue, has illustrated her cats and even published a novel based on them. Even Carrie Bradshaw toyed with the cat concept in her latest series ‘And Just Like That’ when she brought home a kitten named Shoe. The traditional ‘cat lady’ concept has been rebranded. This lady has symbolized solitude and eccentricity for generations, and now she gets a fresh spin. On TikTok, the #CrazyCatLady hashtag has more than 230,000 posts, many of them from young people showing off their cats to the camera. Simultaneously, cats have occupied a significant place in the world of fashion.

So why cats?

Animals in general show up more and more in the design world. They allow designers to infuse narrative and personal meaning into their designs. Love for pets has almost no rival,and is certainly indisputable. In a world saturated with global challenges, wars and hardship, the use of pet imagery provides comfort and joy and expresses nostalgia for the innocent times of the past.

Cats have had a symbolic meaning throughout history. In various cultures, the cat is a symbol of luck, spirituality and supernatural powers. In ancient Egypt, the cat was considered sacred.

In other cultures, the cat is a symbol of pleasure, wisdom and intuition. Over time, cats became man’s friend, and today they are a beloved pet. Although cats are an independent animal, they can also be sociable and loving Cats are also a symbol of beauty, melody and elegance, symbolizing the wild nature in each of us.

Cats have been fascinating the world of fashion for years. From Stella McCartney in 2016, through Gucci to Miu Miu, played with cat motifs. The 2023 Met Gala revealed the first hints of a wider feline takeover. The gala paid tribute to the life of the late Karl Lagerfeld, and several guests paid tribute to Choupette, his beloved cat. The cat, now 12 years old, accompanied Lagerfeld regularly and never left his lap. The most spoken of tribute was that of well-known rapper Doja Cat, who wore a silver Oscar de la Renta dress with a hood featuring cat ears and a cat face prosthesis. In 2024, the “cat trend” was officially announced by Vogue magazine.

The cat frenzy reached a boiling point at JW Anderson’s show at Milan Fashion Week this year. The show was a love letter to JW’s love of fine art and dedicated to a single cat. Sweaters, dresses and a selection of bags were presented with a painting of Stanley Kubrick’s beloved cat, Polly. The painting of Polly, painted by Kubrick’s daughter, Katharina Kubrick, may remind us of a scene in the director’s 1999 Eyes Wide Shut. Cat motifs were also on the runway of Givenchyand other high end brands. At the Acne Studios show in Paris, the studio presented a dramatic long-sleeved shirt featuring an AI-generated white cat with giant blue eyes.

The world of furniture design traditionally follows the world of fashion, but for some trends the transition is more difficult. We live with our homeware for a longer time than the items we wear, , therefore trends like the cat trend will appear in interiors as a piece or part of a limited series. One of these famous items is Vitra’s resting cat from 2018. Ceramic resting cats, part of a series dedicated to the observation of resting animals, are minimalistic but precise and evoke a sense of calm and wonder.

This past year we have been engaged in hand crocheted graphics at our studio. We had a technical discovery that surprised and excited us – hand crochet jacquard. Jacquard is a technique supposedly reserved for industrial knitting and is actually a figurative pixel drawing in knitting The jacquard technique opened up endless graphic possibilities. The first outcome debuted this year as a collection of poufs with botanical prints.

But, prior to the botanical prints, and even before we saw cats staring from the catwalks, we intuitively worked with our Tsepem model. Tsepem sleeps on the poufs, stretches and scratches her nails on the cardboard boxes, meows, drives us crazy and fills us with love. No wonder Tsepem was the inspiration for the first jacquard items we created. You can find them at our studio in a very limited edition.

So, Do you own a cat item in your closet or home? If not, maybe now is the time to choose one.