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Sight Unseen x Kasthall Collaboration Weaves Colors and Lines for Stockholm Design Week

02.14.19 | By
Sight Unseen x Kasthall Collaboration Weaves Colors and Lines for Stockholm Design Week

Upon first impression, the collaboration between Kastall, a 120-year-old Swedish rug company, and New York based contemporary design site Sight Unseen, seems an odd pairing. Sight Unseen’s lens focuses upon the imaginative, graphical, and slightly unorthodox, while Kasthall’s catalog represents an organic and timeless expression of the woven inspired by nature. The launch of Kasthall’s newly refreshed online design tool, Rug Designer, presented an opportunity for their paths to converge, resulting in two rugs designed by both of Sight Unseen’s founders.

Presenting both rug designs at Kasthall’s Stockholm flagship store an evening prior to the official unveiling at the Stockholm Furniture Fair, Sight Unseen co-founder Jill Singer described the opportunity as unexpected, yet welcome. “I don’t claim to call myself a ‘designer’ by any means,” humbly explains Singer, “But Kasthall’s Rug Designer allowed us an easy means of experimentation, and we’re pleased with the results.”

Both striped designs express an identifiably Sight Unseen palette, one round and the other rectangular, both popping in contrast to Kasthall’s characteristically organic rug collection showcased within the company’s recently redesigned showroom – an intentional curveball decision by Kasthall to exhibit the creative variance offered by their online design tool.

Conceived to aid architects and interior designers, the updated Rug Designer expands upon their initial woven rug color and pattern options by adding Mark, a hand-tufted rug available in 116 colors, either in in solid color blocks or with a simple geometric pattern.

Mark, a round 100% wool handtufted rug designed by Sight Unseen is available in 116 different colors.

Arkad, a woven striped rug designed by Sight Unseen using Kasthall’s Rug Designer, and is available in 160 colors.

Singer explains the rugs as reflective of the clean lines of Scandinavian design language, while also breaking away in unexpected fashion.

“Sight Unseen is all about how to use color in a chic but un-boring way — we like to create exciting, unique color combinations, often using tonal variations or strong contrasts. In the woven rug for example we see combinations of blush pink, dusky rose and mustard yellow paired with a much deeper ochre tone.”

The rugs designed by Sight Unseen are both available at the Kasthall flagship store in Stockholm’s Ingmar Bergmans Gata 4 and other retailers listed online at the Kasthall store locator.

Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.