Kasthall sustainable Swedish rugs

This 128-Year-Old Swedish Rug Company Has Made Some of the Coolest Rugs of 2017

Much has changed in the 128 years since Kasthall debuted as the fist industrial rug factory in Sweden — but then again, some things have remained the same. The company’s woven and hand-tufted rugs are still produced in Kasthall’s original factory. Craftsmanship and high-quality materials remain hallmarks of the brand. And sustainable production has been a point of pride all along. It’s this consistency that has kept customers coming back since 1889, and it’s what’s made Kasthall a fixture in so many homes, retail spaces, hotels, and restaurants. But over the years, the company’s interest in innovation — and its just-minimalist-enough aesthetic — has attracted new generations of design enthusiasts as well.
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Dee Clements of Chicago’s Herron Studio

For Dee Clements, who makes beautiful hand-woven goods out of her Chicago design studio, Herron, sustainability is key. “I know it’s an overused buzzword, but it’s really important,” she says. Though she’s talking about the environmental impact of large-scale textile production and why she mainly uses small-farm fibers that aren’t chemically or unethically produced, sustainability, in a creative sense, is also on her mind.
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Uhuru, Furniture Designers

If you were familiar only with Uhuru’s work, it would be enough to surmise that the Brooklyn-based furniture designers are experts at creating something beautiful from practically nothing. (The formal term for this, we’re told, is up-cycling.) In the half-decade since RISD grads Jason Horvath and Bill Hilgendorf have been designing their own line, they’ve produced chairs from Kentucky bourbon barrels, loungers from the Ipe wood planks of a demolished Coney Island boardwalk, and scrapwood stools so stylish they were recently picked to decorate the café at New York’s SANAA-designed New Museum. But while it's true Uhuru are a resourceful bunch, step into their sprawling Red Hook studio and any assumptions you might have about their bootstraps process all but disappear.
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