Why rugs and carpets are back in vogue
Forget art on the walls, now it’s on the floors too,
When you walk in from the cold, you want your home to feel comforting under foot. So, while wooden boards are still a popular and practical choice, it was only a matter of time before carpet made a comeback – as it has in recent years, with designer collaborations bringing a fashionforward edge to floors.
One such is a new collection from Abigail Ahern for Herefordshire-based company Roger Oates (rogeroates.com). Ahern, known for her stylishly edgy aesthetic, admits she wasn’t one for carpet before she started work on the collection: “I hated them,” she says. “All the floors in my house are wooden or concrete. But I do have rugs, and although I think a plain-colour carpet drains a room, I noticed that rugs with pattern changed the feeling of the space. Pattern is like a herb, or a spice; it adds a bit of pizzazz.” Her range includes striped rugs and runners, one of which takes pride of place on her own staircase. “It totally glamorises the hall and makes it feel so much more luxurious when you walk in the door,” she says. The collection is a highlight of Wool Week, the Campaign for Wool’s drive to raise awareness about the benefits of the fibre, which starts on Monday, partnering with brands such as Vivienne Westwood, Hackett and John Smedley.
Alternative Flooring (alternative flooring.com), which is involved with the campaign, has plenty of options for those who want to go wall-to-wall with pattern, including a new collection with upmarket fabric house Zoffany, which brings luxe geometric, marble or crackle prints at an affordable price (£57.95 per sq m). Alternative Flooring’s creative director, Lorna Haigh, says wool can be a practical choice. “It’s durable and cleans easily; due to its inherent properties, it bounces back,” she says. “The main benefit is that it is a natural product. We are all making conscious decisions about how we consume, and buying a wool carpet for the home is one of those.”
Brintons (brintons.co.uk) has been making carpets for more than 200 years, and recently called on the talents of designers such as Kelly Hoppen to give it a modern spin. Its carpets are made using a blend of 80per cent wool and 20per cent nylon, which it says gives a luxurious feel in a more durable form. The company’s second collaboration with design duo Timorous Beasties is on the cards for early next year after the first proved a huge hit.
For those unwilling to commit to wall-to-wall, the Berber-style rug trend is still going strong. Graham & Green’s Myla rug will instantly add texture and tactility to a room. Online rug-sourcing company Edit58 (edit58.com) will find Moroccan examples to suit your space, from around £400. Founder Lisa Mehydene advises that it’s best to go as big as you can afford so that you can place furniture on top of it, rather than arranging chairs and sofas around a small rug in the middle of the room, which can make the space feel smaller.
Colour and pattern are key trends for rugs this autumn, notably at The Rug Company (therugcompany.com), where fashion designer Jonathan Saunders has just launched his second collection. His new Witton design, a series of overlapping squares, rectangles and stripes, comes in either cobalt blue and greys or candy-coloured pastels, while his geometric Lewitt and Helio runners are perfect for adding welcoming pattern to an entrance hall.
For Saunders, who studied printed textiles at Glasgow School of Art, translating his aesthetic from fashion to rugs was a logical move. And flooring appears to be a particularly appealing medium for fashion designers, perhaps due to its ability to take a pattern: Christopher Kane, Paul Smith and Sarah Burton at Alexander Mcqueen have all worked with The Rug Company. Hannah Weiland, of the fashion label Shrimps, similarly uses print as a starting point for her clothing collections, and her whimsical illustrations have been transferred to flatweave cotton and hand-tufted wool rugs as part of her homeware collection for Habitat (habitat.co.uk).
Floor Story is another company teaming up with fashion design talent. Kitty Joseph and Zandra Rhodes have both come up with colourful examples, showcased during last month’s London Design Festival, that sum up the current exuberant mood in interiors. It’s flooring that could just as easily be displayed on a wall – indeed, rugs as wall art is another growing trend – and proof that, if you want to change up your interior with pattern and texture, you should start by looking down.