The world’s most famous sofa is in a modest house museum in a London suburb. The circa 1890 sofa belonged to the famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, and is covered in layers of Oriental Rugs with another rug hanging on the wall behind the sofa. The sofa is where Dr Freud’s patients reclined during sessions, so it’s safe to assume the rugs gave his patients a sense of warmth and security. Whatever the reason for the rugs, the interior decorating idea of layering Oriental rugs – new, vintage, or antique – on furniture and floors is not a fusty, dated idea, but a confirmed contemporary trend.

 

A Brief History of Layered Rugs

Rugs have been used throughout history in more ways that just covering a floor. Rugs and Kilims were used to hang on walls, as room dividers, as bedspreads, table covers, and of course as floor carpets.

When Europeans began to buy Oriental rugs they were expensive and highly valued, so often they were used to cover furniture rather than floors to protect them from damage. By the 20th century, designers and architects like Charles and Ray Eames and Le Corbusier used Oriental rugs in their modern homes, with the Eames duo layering multiple traditional Oriental rugs in the den area of their super modern California home. These designers knew that incorporating Oriental rugs was a quick and effective way to create layers, contrast, and visual warmth while “broadcasting” their knowledge of valuable textiles and

embracing globalism. 

 

Why Layered Rugs?

Without Freud around to help us psychoanalyze this trend, let’s consider a few reasons why layering is a great idea for homes and the hospitality industry.
• Layers create a sense of well-being, and when stress is the default position for many of us, well-being is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for personal and professional spaces
• Layers create visual warmth (a good thing!) and in practical terms layers also create thermal insulation which is no bad thing if you want to reduce heating bills
• Layers allow you to use more of what you love in a limited space, and with more of us living in small spaces, layering is a welcome trend!

 

 

Layered Rugs in the Hospitality Industry

Two new on-trend boutique hotels opened in 2016 – one in New York and the other in Paris – and each one creatively employs the layered rugs concept.

The Beekman Hotel, New York City, is in a historic building dating from 1883 during the Victorian era. Described as “cozy glamour”, guests are welcomed at the wood panelled reception by a long desk layered with a succession of classic Oriental Rugs. Designed by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, the rugs are carefully curated to curve with the shape of the desk to create a single sleek look. Lighting hidden beneath the curve further unifies the different rug designs.

The design of The Beekman Hotel successfully employs the 25% rule for layering antiques and vintage with new and contemporary. The most successful designed rooms have a subliminal sense of proportion to avoid any one style or era from predominating (remember, you don’t want your room looking like Freud’s sofa in a museum!). Keep antiques and vintage objects (including rugs) to no more than 25% of a room’s real estate, and use contemporary or new items for the remaining 75%. The Beekman Hotel’s reception deftly achieves this rule by the way in which they’ve layered the antique rugs in a highly contemporary way, and by lightening the look with a brightly tiled floor and contemporary art.

The boutique Amastan Hotel in Paris opened 2016. Similar to The Beekman Hotel, the design cleverly incorporates an Oriental rug but in a completely different way. A sofa alcove in the hotel lounge features a large gold contemporary rug that hangs from the ceiling, drapes over the sofa, and falls to the floor to continue as a rug. The look is dramatic and contemporary, and the rug’s status as a work of art is enhanced not only by its use as a partial wall hanging but by dramatic lighting that makes the rug look like an artwork in the Louvre Museum.

 

How to Get the Layered Look at Home

The easiest way to get the look is to layer rugs on your floors. Rather than match your rugs, choose different patterns and sizes as contrast, but choose similar colorways and weaves to create harmony. Lay the rugs at angles to create more interest, but always remember to consider how the rugs lay together and are anchored to the floor (placing furniture on top is the best method) to prevent trip hazards.

Borrowing the layered rug concept from The Beekman Hotel might not work in every home, but why not steal the look of the Amastan Hotel and hang a rug on a wall and allow it to dramatically drape over the top of your sofa? This look will fit most homes and is especially welcome in smaller homes where floor space may not be large enough for a huge rug. Not only does this idea create a dramatic focal point on the wall while providing thermal warmth, but it will allow you to own a light colored rug that you might otherwise avoid if you have kids or pets.

Layering rugs in the ways described might be viewed by some as a temporary trend, but Oriental rugs are a classic design object. They have survived and thrived longer than any other design object, and they will survive all trends. Bottom line? The Oriental rug is never out of style, so layer them with abandon and enjoy!

It’s hard to imagine life without Netflix binges and cheap air travel, both of which allow people to easily experience other cultures, but how did normal people get similar experiences in centuries before TV and cheap travel? Trade is the answer, and the farther away the country was from Europe and the US, the more “exotic” and desired the trade items. One of the most popular “exotic” motifs was – and still is – the fanciful figurative patterning called “Chinoiserie” from China and Japan. In the early modern history of trade few westerners would ever be able to visit the far east, so objects like folding screens, ceramics, and textiles were eagerly collected. Some of the most innovative Chinoiserie designs that merged the best of the west with the best of the east, eventually developed into an early 20^thcentury China-based international rug company that produced the designs we now know as “Nichols Rugs”. 

Chinoiserie started with imitations of what westerners perceived as “typical” Chinese and Japanese motifs like pagodas, and themes such as life in the imperial palace. Over time Chinoiserie motifs developed and began to include colorways and themes repackaged for western tastes and to reflect trends in western decorative arts. It’s a slight simplification, but the different design objectives between the west and the east – westerners prized design novelty and originality while Chinese valued tradition, skill, and scholarship – became complementary and harmonious design values. Nowhere were these objectives merged more creatively than in the exemplars of hand-knotted Art Deco era Chinese silk Chinoiserie “Nichols rugs”. 

 

W.A.B. Nichols was a western owned rug company based in China at the turn of the 20^thcentury. A multi-page company brochure from the 1930s describes the “Nichols Super Rugs” as “world famous” and “the most durable and beautiful product of the modern Chinese weavers art” with “designs, colors and workmanship placing them in a class by themselves”. The company described their ability to adapt Chinese motifs and reinterpret them via western design motifs. An example of this fusion is the “broken border” which merges Chinese motifs with the popular French design tradition where elements like plants or potted flowers break through the geometric border into the main field. 

 

Similar to the broken border design is our indigo blue hand-knotted Nichols rug circa 1930s. Birds and butterflies cross a sky blue field while a darker almost tropical “night sky” border has more flowers and birds. Nichols promoted the “twelve tones of indigo blue” they used while reminding consumers indigo is “China’s national color”. Four flower urns sit on small stands at each corner of the rug. The design point of view makes them appear to tip forward as though they are about to spill their flowers across the field. The Nichols brochure says designs are “gleaned from old palace rugs, porcelains, pottery, temple decorations and bronzes, the old containing a mixture of the new thus modernizing the design and making the rug a thing of beauty for the western home.” The company employed skilled artists who were “always on the alert for something new” who were able to combine “the best elements of the western and Chinese designs into a harmoniously blended whole.” 

 

Art Deco is always in style, but finding affordable antiques from the era (early 1920s to mid 1930s) is increasingly difficult. At price per square foot, Nichols rugs remain extremely good value. In good condition they not only hold their value, but more often than not, accelerate in value. But if your budget doesn’t stretch to an original Nichols Super Rug, fear not, we stock new hand-knotted rugs in the Chinoiserie style updated for contemporary interiors. For example our hand-knotted contemporary Chinoiserie rug features a central oval field of vibrantly colored stylized flower contrasted against an almost-black indigo field. Rather than a broken border, this design features a distinct design elements that create a vibrant contrast of geometry and color. The pattern is stunning and while it is definitely Chinoiserie, the motif is updated for the 21st century with color choice and pattern elements. 

Chinoiserie offered the promise of virtual travel when real travel to far-flung destinations was impossible for the majority of people. Fortunately even though travel has been democratized and there is no corner of the world left undiscovered, there are still new ways to experience Chinoiserie and incorporate the patterns in your home through the beauty of handmade rugs.