Decorating with Carpets

In decoration, a carpet’s influence is never outsized. In fact, more than any other element of a room, and as the largest and most expensive component of any design scheme, the effect a carpet has on a space is every bit as great as its size. Decorators have long recognized the importance of a fine carpet, its impact on the colors and textures of a space, its contribution to creating an atmosphere, its feel of luxury, and, with the best examples, its lasting value.

Despite their essential role as the bedrock of any design scheme, beautiful carpets have lived in the shadows of recognition. Decorating with Carpets: A Fine Foundation aims to change that oversight, tapping the extensive and remarkable archive of Stark Carpet for interior design’s greatest examples.

Over the course of its 75 years, Stark Carpet, the premier purveyor of carpets to the trade in the country, has worked with the each era’s most notable designers, from Billy Baldwin and Dorothy Draper to Sister Parish and Albert Hadley to Mark Hampton and Mario Buatta to contemporary leading lights such as Diamond Baratta, Victoria Hagan, Katie Ridder, and Stephen Gambrel. These designers offer imaginative solutions to practical problems ranging from the selection of appropriate carpeting for high-traffic areas, such as stairs and corridors, to using faux wild cat and fawn motifs to unify color and design, and countless other challenges.

Carpets produced by Stark demonstrate decorating trends at their highest level. Decorating with Carpets: A Fine Foundation delves into types of carpets (Oriental, Aubusson, Savonnerie, Dhurrie, French velour, Moroccan, French Petit and Gros Point, Portuguese and Greek needlework, Axminster, Wilton, flatweave, hand-carved) and explores patterns (geometrics, florals, plaids, animal prints) and textures, illustrating all through the work of the most talented American designers. Decorating with Carpets: A Fine Foundation promises be the definitive book on carpet, a handsome, richly illustrated volume that, like its subject, captures great beauty and has timeless value.