STUDIO
TEXT: ZOE SETTLE
THE RUG COMPANY
CONTEMPORARY DESIGN WITH A NEPALI SOUL
"WE STARTED LIKE EVERY OTHER RUG COMPANY—WE COLLECTED OLD RUGS,” SAYS THE RUG
Company cofounder Suzanne Sharp. “We lived in the Middle East for a while and were surrounded by these
beautifully made rugs. We became fascinated by the rug-making process, but there wasn’t anything new in
the industry. It was either antique rugs or copies of antique rugs! Anything called modern was just really safe
and didn’t have any real design process.” As her husband and partner Christopher Sharp puts it, “At the turn
of last century, Ziegler was still making beautiful rugs, but then the rug business seems to have lost interest
in designing.”
