Whoop, Whoop! Carpet Design Awards 2020

Whoop, Whoop! Carpet Design Awards 2020

We’ve done it and got our hands on a Carpet Design Award, the Oscars of the industry. We’ve been hunting one of these awards for a good few years and we finally nailed it thanks to the stellar creativity of John Booth and his Giovanni design.

Given these are the most hotly anticipated awards in the rug game, organised by the best magazine in the industry, Cover, you can imagine our tension in the run-up. Presented at the Domotex flooring exhibition in Germany, we waited with everything crossed and when they called out our name we were blown away. We’ve been shortlisted before, but never made the final cut, this time though it was different, and the joy was too hard to hide.

Giovanni took the CDA for Best Studio Artist Design with the judges saying that it was ‘fresh and true – an art rug that ticks every box’. This award has been won by the all the greats of the rug world - Jan Kath, Rug Star, CC Tapis – and now us. We’ve the silverware (well, it’s a glass trophy but we’re not complaining) to class ourselves in the same sphere as some of our heroes.

Photo by Domotex

Photo by Domotex

Of course, we couldn’t have done it without John Booth, so a huge thank you, and our super-skilled makers in Nepal who bring our artist’s stunning designs to reality. Giovanni typifies the attention that both artist and weaver places in making sure the rugs are the best can be.

Weavers in Nepal working on Giovanni

Weavers in Nepal working on Giovanni

In an intensively collaborative process over several sessions, John worked closely with us to hand-pick yarns and work through the translation of his original artwork. We turned the original into a workable rug design, bringing depth of colour in wool and using bamboo viscose to add pops of lustre, staying as close as possible to his original design drawings. Then our artisans have hand-knotted Giovanni so exquisitely that it captures John’s painterly colour layups, fill scribbles and graphic lines for a rug that he says is ‘a true representation of my work’.

Thanks to the judges and thanks to everyone involved in the making of Giovanni. We won!

FLOOR_STORY designer Gill in our Shoreditch showroom

FLOOR_STORY designer Gill in our Shoreditch showroom

But the CDA is not the only award we picked up in Germany. The night before, our website also picked up a Carpet Star Award, organised by Germany’s Carpet! magazine, for Exemplary Webshop. With a ton of work gone into our new site, we’re delighted that the less glamorous side of our operation is also being appreciated on an international stage. It was certainly a great couple of nights.