Kitty Joseph on her new Optick collection

Kitty Joseph on her new Optick collection

After her Chroma collection Kitty Joseph designed four new rugs for FLOOR_STORY as part of the Optick collection. With striking hand carved 3D features and chromatic effects, it also fully customisable.

Can you tell us a little more about your designs for FLOOR_STORY and exactly what inspired them?

The Optick collection is an exploration of the expressive beauty of a bicolour palette and simultaneous contrast. Combined with subtle geometry and surface carving inspired by the accordian pleating used in my clothing collections, the rugs gently appear to shift in design and colour as you move around them. By rotating the rugs in your space, you can shift the colour to fit your mood - colour therapy and adaptability within space!

Inspired by Bauhaus teacher Josef Albers study on the Interaction of colour, I set about creating a range of colourways that demonstrate the infinite possibilities of mood and ambience that you can create within a room with a well-tuned two-colour mix. With these palettes, you can see the potential to achieve either bold graphic effects through placing complimentary hues, or more subtle tonal effects by mixing close shades.

The beauty of these rugs is their customisable potential. Depending on the space or needs of a client, with Floorstory's made to order process you can develop new palettes to echo or complement existing colour themes.

colour therapy and adaptability within space

Can you describe your new rugs?

For my latest collection, Optik, the striped patterning of the rugs involves a subtle geometric play, with the zigzagged edges informing the subtle variations of stripe within them. The dual-colour stripe is hand carved in corrugated lines, creating the colour change effect, and enhancing the effects of shade and light on the surface of the pile, adding a complexity of tonal and textural variations to the coloured yarns.