5 Achingly Cool Ways To Place Rugs

We recently found ourselves fawning over Lady Deirdre Dyson's gorgeous rug collection at Maison et Objet in Paris. Even our editorial director Pip McCormac couldn't resist the distorted, water-inspired shapes and patterns.

Titled the 'Looking Glass collection', Deirdre's eight new hand-knotted designs were each inspired by her observations of colours and forms through glass, glass objects and water.

But gorgeous forms aside, we were also tickled by her placement of the rugs in her catalogue, as each styled shoot perfectly illustrates ways in which you can make a striking feature out of any rug at home.

Here are five ways you can make a striking statement with a rug at home...

1. HANG FROM THE CEILING

We've seen gorgeous framed rugs and throws on the walls as of late. For example in Studio Peake's interior, a BFGF throw from A New Tribe is framed and hung on the wall to great effect – a look we've also spotted in Beata Heuman's home. But Deirdre Dyson illustrates how rugs can be hung on their own, suspended on thin clear wire – thus leaving the texture there for touching.

Hanging rugs as an artwork also has the added benefit of improving acoustics in an open-plan space or a room with lots of glass, reducing reverberated noise.

2. MOUNT ON A WALL

Following the theme of art, a rug can easily be mounted against the wall – without the need for a frame. This makes a striking, textural artwork, and invites you to really look at a design, much more than if it were hidden underfoot and under furniture. With expensive or rare designs we think this is a rather clever way to show them off to full potential.

As rugs are soft and maleable, they are the perfect art for hanging on curved walls where a framed piece wouldn't work. Genius!

3. AT AN ANGLE

We love how the rug here is placed at a rather ridiculous angle as it really draws attention to the piece itself, and in this example it also helps connect the upper and lower spaces by spilling between the two.

4. ON ITS OWN

It's a habit of all of us to automatically try and zone a space by placing the furniture of an area onto a rug, thus creating a room within a room. But here we're reminded how sometimes it can be a bit of a waste to hide a rug under a piece of furniture (like under this bed for example), when they can be admired in full when placed on its own in a space, uninterrupted.

Or, if that feels too abstract, opting for see-through furniture can still showcase a rug without blocking the pattern.

5. CLASSIC

And lastly, the classic way of placing the rug between two inward-facing seats. In this example a small side table is favoured instead of a coffee table, giving the best of both worlds; a surface to rest your cuppa on, while also leaving a pattern uninterrupted.

Deirdre Dyson's ‘Looking Through’ rug design began as a painting of the distortions seen through a water-filled flask against the real shapes behind. Deirdre Dyson's 'Transparent' rug design is a reinterpretation of decorative shapes on a coloured vase, while her ‘Light Between’ design is a play on contrasting monochrome grading with the illusion of light. ‘Slivers’ is a design that stems from a series of small flat discs of overlapping glass, combining 33 different colours in wool and silk.

The whole collection will be on show in the Deirdre Dyson Gallery on London’s King’s Road (554 King’s Road, SW6 2DZ) from February.

Deirdre says: “With this collection, my aim was to simulate a visual glassy appearance using wool and silk. A challenge indeed but I hoped that even if I failed to achieve this, I would still create exciting and interesting results and effects.”

Each Deirdre Dyson carpet is completely bespoke and can be made to order in any shape or size, fitted or free-standing (past commissions include fish silhouettes and a carpet seven metres wide).

Photography by Jake Curtis

Styling by Louisa Grey