ELLE DECOR A-List designer Michelle R. Smith has partnered with Nordic Knots on a new collection of flatweave rugs for the brand launching today.
Smith, whose New Orleans home was featured on the April 2024 cover of ELLE DECOR, has created four different styles for the popular Swedish company. They include a geometric patterned green rug, a jute stripe, and two additional patterned rugs.
Among the unlikely inspirations? Menswear. Smith found on Etsy a 1980s Esprit scarf. Its print serves as a focal point for the collection. “I knew I wanted pattern but needed a jumping-off point that wasn’t a stripe,” Smith says. “I’m a self-described stripe slut. I started hunting for vintage pocket squares that had simple, graphic patterns, ones that felt playful but would translate well to a rug.”
The Orleans rug pictured in Smith’s Bellport, New York living room. «I’m a sucker for sludge greens,» Smith says. «I have it in my son’s room, in our morning room, and I’m installing the runners on our stairs next month. That kind of green can act as a neutral, and the pattern has this subtle woven effect. It can fill in for a natural fiber rug, but it’s slightly more interesting.»
While Nordic Knots has partnered with designers like Fabrizio Casiraghi and Giancarlo de Valle for previous collections, this collaboration is somewhat of a reunion for Smith and Nordic Knots founder Liza Berglund Laserow. The two got to know each other a decade ago when they shared an office space in New York City and were just beginning their careers in design. “Michelle doesn’t let anything slip through the cracks,” Berglund Laserow said. “She considers every aspect of interior design, right down to the toothbrush in the bathroom.”
Smith said she found responding to her former officemate’s invitation liberating. The guidance was simple: “Just do it. No parameters, no guidelines. Show us what you’ve got.”
The Pierce rug from the collection, which Smith says she uses in her daughter’s nursery.
