Jan Kath is one of the world’s most sought-after rug designers. He deliberately breaks with conventional styles and abandons strict design rules. He famously translates the iconography of classical rugs into a modern matrix, mixing the minimalist zeitgeist with traditional luxury, creating a signature style which has distinguished his brand.

One of his most celebrated collections is called Erased Classics, and consists of patterns borrowed from Italian textiles of the Baroque period and executed texturally by separating the background (the ‘low’ part) from the actual motif (the ‘high’ portion), and reducing the palette to two colours (either tone-on-tone or contrasting). As each thread adopted for the pile is 3-ply,  it offers the possibility of creating a tactile dimension as well by a careful miscellany of wool, silk and nettle fibres.

Milano Raved was one of the first patterns he designed for this collection. Jan and I together developed this particular combination, the background being entirely in pure, natural silk of a specific tonality while the pattern, which is in raised pile, consists of two strands of white New Zealand wool mixed with one strand of silk. The result was a glorious homage to the past by recreating a decaying fabric pattern in extremely fine and luxurious materials. The Erased Classics collection became a woven paradigm of the Neo Baroque movement, which was unfolding in the world of design during the first decade of the new millenium.

Rug design would never be the same, as everything seemed possible to make. Jan as well as a host of other talented artists soon realised this, transforming a traditional craft into a medium for creating carpets which are at the crossroads between art and design.