Begone earworm! Valentine’s Day is nigh and Tainted Love is on loop in your scribe’s frontal cortex. Soft Cell’s nonpareil cover of Tainted Love featured in the first series of one of your scribe’s favourite telly shows Being Human. Although nominally about a ghost, vampire, werewolf trio, Being Human is really an elegy to love’s trials. So as it’s time to make good on your love pledges with a token, rather than buy a Dremel to engrave your tortured sentiments on a coin, what to do? Purchase Sin Songs, Torch and Romance by Marc Almond? Good call, but your scribe suggests you deliver a grand geste. Buy your love a Valentine’s rug.
Roses rug (detail) by nanimarquina
Devoted readers wouldn’t expect your scribe to suggest spreading the readies for a rug that simpers. No, no. We need a rug that smolders. Roses wool felt rug by Spanish design company nanimarquina looks like the rose petal vision from the 1999 film classic American Beauty made manifest.
Red is central to Sam Mendes’ film. It signifies lust, anger, passion, transgression and danger, and aren’t those the qualities of love? Rarely is love uncomplicated. Rather love is a mille feuille; its thousand leaves are nuanced and shaded like the felt petals in the Rose rug. Chiaroscuro sweeps like a crimson tide from blood red petals to candy apple red, creating a wool felt palette of love’s trials.
So for Valentine’s Day 2013 your scribe recommends you own the multiplicities of your love. Add a soundscape whilst you lounge amongst the petals. The bittersweet sounds of PS22 Chorus singing Tame Impala’s Feels Like We Only Go Backwards delivers hope for love where older voices sound resigned. I hear it inside my head all day. Gather and scatter rose petals while you may. Tainted love begone. DJ
Roses rug (detail) by nanimarquina
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Art de Vivre x Estúdio Campana at COVER Connect New York 2026Photography by Annie Forrest Over three days last month, COVER Connect New York drew industry insiders to The Altman Building and Metropolitan Pavilion. There, they viewed international rug brands’ latest...
Nordic Nature collection rug Rezas Inbogulve amba, the company behind Denmark’s Garant chain of 65 stores, has acquired the operations of Rezas Oriental & Modern Rugs, expanding its reach to customers in 24 countries. Effective 1 January 2027, the acquisition will...
CALLALUXE™ Rug Jaipur Living Always a hot spot for what's new on the rug radar, High Point Market returns for its autumn edition from 17-20 October this year. Rug brands aplenty appear alongside major furniture companies in this major multi-faceted show which takes...
Winner of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2022 Venice Biennale, Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña is finally receiving global recognition. Denna Jones reviews Vicuña’s new commission at Tate Modern London
Mischief, an exhibition of work by New York-based artist and designer Liz Collins is about to open at Touchstones Rochdale
Rhyme Studio has recently launched Modernity, the studio’s fourth rug collection hand-tufted from Irish wool
Two British home furnishing brands collaborate on an inaugural rug collection
cc-tapis’s new collection Archer, designed by Iranian artist Taher Asad-Bakhtiari, is all about arrows and their power
COVER selects eight new rugs from recent launches that represent the best in contemporary design
‘East London’s Finest_Rug Dealer’ presents an inaugural rug collection with London designers Child Studio
Kateha’s new Pond collection celebrates collaboration in the natural world
