Rug maker Jaipur Living has teamed up with California interior designer Kate Lester for a new rug line called Harman Hold.
The collection was made with a vintage vibe, using antique textile patterns and digitally printed images of vintage rugs with a distressed effect. The rugs also feature a traction backing that makes them stay in place without a rug pad.
Lester, who owns two retail outlets in Southern California in addition to her firm Kate Lester Interiors, is known for mixing vintage and one-of-a-kind pieces with new to create a fresh look.
“High-traffic areas like kitchens and hallways deserve beautiful antique-inspired runners too,” Lester said. “With many of those areas being prone to high traffic, you need something comfortable and durable and we’ve just made that even easier. With the new fully integrated traction backing, you won’t even need to add a rug pad.”
Designer collaborations are big business for home goods companies, and a host of manufacturers and retailers have added interior designer lines to their assortment. Most recently, fellow rug maker Momeni announced a new collection with California-based Pure Salt Interiors, and Anthropologie launched a line of home goods in partnership with British design brand House of Hackney.
Jaipur Living will launch the Harman Hold line at the High Point Market, the semi-annual furniture market held in High Point, N.C., Oct. 22-26. The company has a spate of introductions slated for the market in addition to Harman Hold, including its sustainable Manchaha line.
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Named for the Hindi word meaning “from the heart,” the Manchaha program allows the company to repurpose leftover materials into one-of-a-kind hand-knotted rugs.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) most recent numbers, 2,460 metric tons of rugs and carpets ended up in a landfill in 2018. And only 310 metric tons were recycled.
And while Manchaha helps improve those numbers, sustainability isn’t the only focus of the program. As the project was conceptualized, Kavi Chaudhary, design director Jaipur Living’s India-based counterpart Jaipur Rugs, challenged the company’s artisans to create their own rug designs, with the only guideline being that they use leftover materials. Each handmade Manchaha rug is an original design with more than 200,000 knots in every square meter of hand-spun yarn.
“Because we work with over 40,000 rug artisans, we wanted to create opportunities for these individuals to express themselves,” said Asha Chaudhary, Jaipur Living CEO. “Our Manchaha program is a testament to the power of creative freedom through the crafting of one-of-a-kind rugs. Besides the impressive sustainable production, these original designs are poetic narrations of the everyday lives and emotions of their creators.”
Given the opportunity to be spontaneous on the loom, Manchaha artisans weave their rugs with a mix of personal stories and elements of their culture and surroundings. Weavers are sent more than 50 shades of wool, silk, and rayon to choose from and are given complete creative freedom in terms of patterns, intricacy and inspiration.