About This Project

West Elm had a unique problem - they had no way to hang large rugs from the center of the store that was attractive, only from a wall. They wanted a fixture that could hang any thickness of rug, be easy to use, and be aesthetically pleasing on all sides. They also wanted every store in the Western Hemisphere to have two fixtures.

This was one of our favorite projects, it's so simple but so hard. How do you reinvent the wheel? A rug fixture is a rug fixture, right? How do you make a simple object better? We started with research on existing solutions to get an idea of our direction and drew up a rendering to present. After a few iterations and tweaks we landed on a design West Elm wanted to see built. As with all projects, translating a design to a functional product is not a straight path. Our initial physical prototypes did not work, giving us the opportunity to grow as a team and find better solutions. We found those solutions and the final product is not only easy to use but beautiful as well.

West Elm has an amazing ethos of sustainability so to keep in line with their values we sourced locally cut Douglas Fir timber we then milled to 1" by 3" boards. The fixture uses a Moxon vise style mechanism with bolts to keep the rugs in place. The result is a beautiful fixture that can be quickly operated by one employee.