Peek At India Mahdavi’s Mysterious New Rug Collection

Interior Design Hall of Fame member India Mahdavi has applied her cosmopolitan, polychromatic sensibility to hotels, airport lounges, and residences around the world, as well as a broad portfolio of furniture, objets, and floorcoverings. In March, the Iranian-French talent debuted a new Himalayan-wool rug series at Matter and Shape in Paris. Hand-knotted at CC-Tapis’s atelier in Nepal, Rebus “crafts a visual language at once cryptic and playful,” Mahdavi explains. Each design showcases a grid of esoteric motifs, inspired by the gilt-bronze boxes that midcentury jeweler/artist Line Vautrin engraved with cryptic symbols. Mahdavi’s rug names are equally enigmatic: Do You Have One? (in three sizes), What Do We All Need? (measuring 5 feet square), and What Do We All Want? (a 2.5-by-12-foot runner). Together, Mahdavi says, they form a universal language of signs and colors that is “accessible to all, yet mysterious.”