Top Floor launch calligraphy carpet collection

Top Floor’s new Script collection by Esti Barnes launches today at the Goldsmiths Centre, London. It draws directly and accurately from the Arabic calligraphy of Hassan Massoudy with whom the carpet designer collaborated.

Top Floor’s new Script Collection by Esti Barnes launches today, 6 November at the Goldsmiths Centre, London. It draws directly and accurately from the Arabic calligraphy of Hassan Massoudy with whom the carpet designer collaborated.

Launch of Top Floor Calligraphy Script Carpet Collection by Esti Barnes

‘As a designer, and having grown up in Istanbul, I have always had a fascination for the classical forms of calligraphy,’ says Barnes. The characters used have been selected both for their aesthetic value and their poetic meaning. It was a difficult task to narrow down the thousands of works to the final few that feature on the nine rugs of the Script Collection: Patience, Peace, Dream, Earth, Fire, Water, Roots and Oh Friend! Each motif is tagged with a short proverb or line of verse, in a stylised Arabic script, words taken from the different cultures that inspired the original work. The rugs can be produced with the inclusion of these, or, to create a more abstract effect, without.

It was necessary to find the most talented of weavers to translate the patternation of ink on paper to that of knots in wool. Esti’s personal favourite is the subtle Roots. Subscribe to COVER to read more about the Script Collection collaboration in the upcoming Winter issue.

Roots – ‘Although you may not know where you are going, remember where you came from’ African saying, wool and silk

Earth (detail) – ‘Earth doesn’t belong to Man; it is man who belongs to the Earth’ Chief Seattle (1708 – 1866), wool and silk

Earth (detail)

Launch of Top Floor Calligraphy Script Carpet Collection by Esti Barnes

Colour and carving samples at the Top Floor showroom preview

Water – ‘In a fight between fire and water, fire always dies’, Spanish saying, 100% silk

Launch of Top Floor Calligraphy Script Carpet Collection by Esti Barnes

Peace runner, wool and silk