The Six Bells is proud to announce a collaboration with The Wallach Project, the organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of the historic Wallach House of Folk Art Munich, on a collection of home goods and apparel featuring three of the house's iconic folk prints.
THE STORY OF THE WALLACH HOUSE
Founded in Munich in 1900 by Julius and Moritz Wallach, sons of a Jewish grain merchant, the Wallach House was one of Europe's great fashion emporiums. Later joined in the business by their brother Max, Wallach House designs transformed the iconic dirndl dress from rural workwear into a wardrobe fixture.
An early silk dirndl made for the wife of Prince Joachim of Prussia caused such a sensation at a Paris ball that the Wallach name became internationally known. By 1908 Paris fashion houses including Lanvin were placing major orders for their handblocked fabrics, with commissions following from London, Amsterdam, and New York.
THE COLLECTION
This collaboration brings three of the Wallach House's iconic patterns, the Zwölfermuster, the Herzerlmuster, and Tiere im Wald, into a collection of objects for the home, the table, and everyday life.
The collection includes a pinafore dress, cafe curtains, throw pillows, ruffle napkins, scalloped placemats, a dog bed, makeup pouch, fanny pack, and potholder and oven mitt, each one made in an original Wallach pattern.Â
THE HISTORY
The business was seized by the Nazi regime in 1937. Although it was returned after the war, by that time the family had been scattered around the world and, in Max’s case, murdered at Auschwitz. What endured across the decades were the patterns, produced continuously by master printer Josef Fromholzer from his workshop in Bavaria until his death in 2023.
The founders of The Six Bells and the Wallach Project are all grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, spread across North and South America and Europe.Â
The collection is designed to do two things at once: retell the story of the Wallach House and its influence on European folk art and fashion, and reimagine its most iconic prints as objects for contemporary life.
THE WORK DRESS in Zwölfermuster and Herzerlmuster
Inspired by the working dirndl that the Wallach House helped bring from the Bavarian countryside into fashionable life, The Work Dress is built for the same purpose of those garments: Wearing all day when there's always something to do.Â
Part utilitarian, part nostalgic country day dress, The Work Dress is light and unfussy with deep, practical pockets that hold everything from measuring tape to baby bottles.
