Stephanie Odegard was the first designer during the past few decades to marry the matte texture of wool with the shimmer of silk. Odegard still sets the standard in this combination with variations of floral designs as well as elegant tone on tone carpets where the silk and wool play with each other creating subtle nuances of shape and color.
Stephanie was drawn to the simplicity and primitive feel of the felt pieces she saw in Kashmir along Asia’s historic silk route. While the felting is done entirely by hand in traditions passed down through the generations, Stephanie has added her modern sensibility and refined sense of style to this centuries old craft.
Stephanie Odegard’s Kerala collection was conceived one monsoon season during her Ayurvedic retreat in Kerala, a state on the southern tip of India. The region is lush with vegetation inspiring Stephanie to sketch and paint. These works were the foundation of a carpet collection highlighting oversized blossoms, abstracted fern borders and tropical leaves that seem to float on the rug.
Each rug found in Stephanie Odegard’s Arboreal Collection has the faraway feel of a centuries-old story that has been woven into the piece — a wise secret whispered from a less complicated time or a soon to be lost culture. With the introduction of the Arboreal Collection, Stephanie Odegard opens the door to this secret story garden, beckoning us to explore its wild abandon and delicate beauty. test content
The Verte Collection was the first hand-knotted hemp carpets to appear in the U.S. market. The collection includes rugs in soft, subtle colorful combinations of hemp, wool, silk and other plant and wool fibers to complete a line that is both bold in weave and texture and subtly natural in palette. Shishnu carpets, in particular, are hand-knotted with natural fibers from the giant Himalayan nettle plant.
The rich, deeply rooted tradition of Guatemalan huipil embroidery is the inspiration behind the bright and spirited Folk Textile Collection. In keeping with Stephanie’s commitment to and appreciation for artistic traditions, the collection honors this centuries-old weaving art. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each carpet benefits Friendship Bridge, an organization that provides micro financing to indigenous Guatemalan weavers.
This collection consists of a melding of media from works of art to the carpet where Stephanie Odegard has taken the artist’s work off the canvas and reinterpreted it into art for the floor, or collaborations with artists designing the carpets themselves. The collection features Dan Golden, home accessories designer, Mira Lehr, painter, Paul Mathieu, furniture designer, Michael Somoroff, photographer, and Ahmad Sardar-Afkhami, architect and interior designer.
Articulated in subtle plumes of onyx, shell, blackberry, sienna, and palm this series of carpets was inspired by Stephanie’s beloved African Grey parrot, named Sidney; and Stephanie’s partner in Nepal, the master artisan, Dorje’s Macaw named Lobi. Stephanie and Dorje’s mutual fascination for their parrots’ complexity of colors and textures precipitated Stephanie’s desire to translate that unique elegance into a collection of hand-knotted rugs.
In this collection Stephanie Odegard intermixes subtle tone on tone wool and silk color combinations. When her selected weaving techniques are mixed with geometric forms they produce designs that visually transform themselves when light plays upon them or the viewing angle is changed. Stephanie Odegard’s intimate knowledge of weaving and knotting techniques has paved the way for creativity in textural innovations in the hand knotted carpet industry of today.
The designs in the Batik Collection are inspired by batik textiles. Kelims that are hand woven flat weaves and have been woven historically from North Africa to China. Stephanie Odegard’s Charlotte Batik is hand dyed and hand woven entirely by the hands of adult labor using 100% Himalayan natural vegetal and Swiss chrome dyed wool in vibrant indigo colors and our Nicolette Batik is hand woven using 100% silk in warm chocolate and gold tones. The results are dazzling carpets that are “tie-dyed” by hand by artisan weavers with spectacular, abstract and uniquely expressionistic motifs.
