Formafantasma's "Telegram" Rugs Feature Messages from their Craftspeople

Italian textile company CC-Tapis has launched its latest range of rugs alongside an international roster of designers, including Objects of Common Interest, Patricia Urquiola, Bethan Laura Wood, and Formafantasma.

The new collections were first revealed at Milan Design Week 2023, at the brand’s flagship store in the city. Across each, handcrafted techniques associated with traditional Nepalese rugmaking are employed – from hand spinning to the use of purified rainwater for the washing of the final pieces.

For Italian design duo, Formafantasma has created a series titled “Telegram”, which features a pared-back color palette and notes scribed by the rugmakers denoting names, places, and thoughts that are meaningful to them. “We wanted to remove the veil between us and the makers,” say Formafantasma’s Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi. “It’s the beginning of a dialogue, instead of merely a finished product.”

Elsewhere, for Athens-based Objects of Common Interest, the natural patterns found across woodgrain provided much of the design inspiration. Their “Moiré” rugs make use of a two-century-old jacquard technique and arrive in three variations: Zig-zag, Splash, and Quadratic. “The 3 shapes are almost like cutouts of an endless landscape, frozen moments in time, samples extracted to be studied up close,” the studio’s founders, Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis, say.

Patricia Urquiola’s “Pipeline” collection, first launched in 2022 as a prototype named “Slinkie”, expanded with new colors. The pieces see a digital artwork of tubular shapes translated into artisanal rugs and depict a maze of cylindrical forms almost emerging from the surface.

The new collections are completed by Bethan Laura Wood’s “Guadalupe” series, which is typical of the designer’s style in terms of being rich in color and pattern. Wood takes note of the patterns she sees on her travels, and absorbs things that others may look straight past. For Guadalupe, she makes this observational obsession a reality – and in particular, was inspired by The New Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The patterns seen across the rugs reference the stained glass windows, with Himalayan wool, linen, silk, and aloe used to recreate the shapes and colors.

Take a closer look at the new collections above, and for more design – check out Nendo’s two-way beer can design, which has been crafted to create the “ideal foam”.