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It’s quite normal to look up in Milan—incredibly varied architecture regularly draws your face toward the sky, and palazzos replete with frescoes keep your irises fully trained on soaring ceilings. It can be easy to ignore what’s underfoot, except when you’re biking over cobblestones in pursuit of too many previews and exhibitions during Salone del Mobile, arguably the design world’s most important week of the year. As I was pounding the pavement to see as much as my legs could hustle to, I kept returning to rugs. Several brands introduced floor coverings with motifs that played on art movements, architecture, and the natural world. They were more than just a place to pad around on, they were room-sized canvases.
Nanimarquina
Butterflies, birds, and suns were just a few of the organic forms present in Nanimarquina’s collection, inspired by the artwork of Lucia Eames—only daughter to famed architect Charles Eames. Crafted from hand-spun Afghan wool, hand-braided jute, and New Zealand wool using techniques like hand-knotting, hand-tufting, and embroidery, each piece is made in India or Pakistan and takes approximately 40 to 60 days to complete.
Beni Rugs
The real pleasure of Milan Design Week is peeking into impeccably-decorated private residences. The home and studio of Mario Milana and Gabriella Campagna—the creative minds behind Casa Milana—hosted Beni Rugs and Laguna B., both of which the pair had collaborated with on new designs. With Beni, they introduced Unione, a five-piece collection with patterns drawn from the very floors they rest on in the Brera apartment. Terrazzo in varying combinations, a new tassel style, and references to Agnes Martin pepper the capsule. The Aho meditation mat, which comes in a circle or square form, has a cushy four-centimeter pile, but I’m most fond of the Io e Te, which perfectly abstracts a traditional checkerboard into irregularly-shaped “tiles”.
Sister by Studio Ashby
Salone’s Alcova exhibition was rife with fresh talent and new collections, scattered about the vast Baggio Military Hospital and Franco Albini–designed Villa Pestarini. Sister by Studio Ashby occupied a sun-drenched corner that Sophie Ashby promptly whipped into a living room I’d want to walk into every day, furnished in her new Ivo upholstered seating and Anouk table, as well as some core pieces. The shaggy Gem rug, which has been around for some time, was on display in a new, less-plush iteration. Shorn of its high pile, the pattern’s depth of color really comes into full view.
CC-Tapis
Together with its Milanese brethren Fornasetti, CC-Tapis (one of my personal favorite rug brands) debuted a Surrealist fantasy of a collection. The carpet beater is the dominant symbol in the collaboration, but other tromp l’oeil visuals—keyholes, phantom hands, columns and sculptures piled onto one another—can also be found across the 16 different designs from the Fornasetti archives.
Jaipur Rugs
If there’s a more unique setting to reveal a rug collection than the Crespi Bonsai Museum, please let me know. Jaipur Rugs tapped celebrated Japanese architect Kengo Kuma to dream up five styles, together titled Faces, inspired by the facades of his projects. Displayed among a thousand-year-old Ficus, pristine ginkgo biloba, and other 100-year-old specimens, each design holds distinct meaning. The Chirashi rug is a nod to the stone patterns of the Kanayama Community Centre in Gunma, while the Kigumi draws from the wooden joinery construction of the GC Prostho Museum Research Centre in Aichi.
Tai Ping Rugs
French designer Sam Baron is a regular collaborator with Tai Ping, a 70-year-old Hong Kong carpet manufacturer known for its technical excellence and abstract, artistic style. In his latest series for the brand, Floræ Folium, Baron has exploded the floral motif with a flurry of petals, pistils, and leaves, all blown up as if under a microscope. Relief effects, subtle color gradients, and stitched details translate the designer’s watercolor drawings into art for the floor.
Kasthall
Atlas and Bonbon, the latest launches from Swedish rug purveyor Kasthall, were conceived by London-based studio Barber Osgerby (the pair are also the subject of a Triennale retrospective through September 6). The prolific designers, who regularly work with industry stalwarts such as Kartell, Vitra, and B&B Italia, explored how the essential tool in carpet-making—the loom—can be a conduit, not a constraint. The Atlas, influenced by the North African mountains its named for, has a double-weft construction that allows the warp to become a part of the final texture, lending a shimmery quality to the finished product. Bonbon, alternatively, offers a denser weave and layered color combinations—playful, yet tailored thanks to a triple-shuttled looped edge.
Balmaceda
In a site-specific installation by artist Luis Úrculo, Mexico City-based rug brand Balmaceda presented its latest collection, Códices. Designed by founder José María Balmaceda (who is deeply inspired by Indian and Nepalese craft traditions), Códices employs a visual language of cacti, snakes, trees, portals, and mythical beings to interpret ancestral Mexican architecture in rug form. Each is made to order and hand-knotted of wool, bamboo silk, and linen in Nepal. In the U.S., you can shop the brand at The Future Perfect.
Art de Vivre
This handwoven wool-silk collection, sprung from the minds of Brazilian designers Fernando and Humberto Campana, brings to mind the sinewy, graphic forms of cellular structures. Evoking moss, lichen, and other ground cover, each organic shape embraces irregularity and asymmetry. The color palette and textural variance only add to the intrigue.
Ege
In an astute move, Danish rug brand Ege teamed up with the effortlessly chic creative director Gabriella Khalil (of NYC’s WSA building and Grand Cayman’s Palm Heights hotel) to unveil Common Ground, a four-piece capsule that brings the brand more into the consumer realm. Adorned in lines every which way, the floor coverings are bathed in shades of cream, chocolate, mocha, and black—they’re sexy, to say the least; made from 100% wool; and, boast Ege’s integrated acoustic backing.