Creating a tapestry of elegance and the art of telling stories through expressive designer rugs

A great rug shouldn’t be the first thing you notice when you walk into a room but the piece that subtly connects the whole interior scheme. Starting with the rug colour scheme allows all other elements to fall into place. The rug weaves colours into living spaces and silently connects art and furniture in the room, forming a balanced and cohesive interior. 

Luke Jones, General Manager of Jenny Jones Rugs, Melbourne, emphasises that he always recommends starting with the rug when decorating a room. He tells the story of a New York designer who visited the showroom, asking her client to have a wander and select a rug and preferred colour scheme while she was enjoying a cup of coffee. When Luke asked why she wasn’t helping her client with the selection, the designer replied that colour is a very personal thing and that she would take the client’s colour and rug choices as the foundation to determine the style and colour scheme of the room. 

Browse the Jenny Jones rug collections

Contrary to interior designers who appreciate using the rug as a starting point, most people still select their rugs after they have bought furniture and art. That’s why Jenny Jones has a different approach to its design process, always starting with several colourways for each design to allow various options to go with clients’ fabrics they might have selected already. 

As a result, the stores and website showcase a variety of designs in different colourways. If a client is unsure how to find the right colour scheme, a look into their wardrobe can solve this issue. The colours we love wearing are often reflected in our homes. 

Once the client has chosen their favourite colours, they can select the rug style, whether it might be abstract, floral, tribal or classic, and, lastly, the size or shape of the rug. Apart from the standard rectangular shape, Jenny Jones also offers round rugs, runners or custom sizes, all of which are made to order.

“We have around 500 rugs in the most popular sizes available across our two showrooms in Melbourne and Perth. People usually don’t want to wait six months to get their piece. So we offer designers and their clients the opportunity to browse our colourways and designs in-store or online,” explains Luke. 

Read an interview with global award-winning dyslexic rug designer Jenny Jones

For those clients who are able to visit the Australian showrooms, Jenny Jones’ styling services include showroom and in-home consultations. Customers can bring their fabric swatches, photos of their artwork or any other objects they love for inspiration. 

“Artworks and rugs represent the largest pieces of colour in a space, so it is very important they tell the same story in colours or style,” explains Luke. 

Additionally, it is helpful to bring your floorplan and a photo of the room for the new rug. In open-plan living areas, for example, rugs can create separate zones and define the dining and living spaces. Large rugs let dining tables shine and can enhance smaller spaces.

Jenny Jones not only provides the client with several rug options to choose from based on their chosen colour scheme, but also assists with placement suggestions. 

Additionally, the rug designer offers home trials, delivering the rug to the property for the homeowner to experience it in different lighting scenarios during the day or at night. 

For those clients who are not able to visit the Australian showrooms or who are living overseas, Jenny Jones’ styling services include online consultations.

Explore the Jenny Jones design and styling services

All Jenny Jones rugs are carefully handcrafted in Nepal and India. It all started in the the mid-1990s when Jenny travelled to India to start her own rug collection with new patterns and colour schemes that would resonate with the Australian audience. 

Since then, the business has been giving back, working with two families in particular for the past 28 years, and developing education and entrepreneurship programmes to support local artisans. 

“With our foundations in India, we know exactly where every dollar is going, namely to the actual artists. We want to give back to these communities and empower them at the same time,” explains Luke. 

The family business is making a difference in the lives of the artisans who live and work in rural villages in Nepal and India where each rug goes through 180 hands until it’s completed, which takes generally six to eight months.

“One rug represents 180 families; 180 different people who transform Jenny’s designs into true pieces of art. All made by hand, which makes each piece unique in the market,” says Luke.

Clients from all over the world are happy to wait for their artistic floor pieces. With their comprehensive rug selection services, Jenny Jones Rugs not only attracts Australian customers but also discerning, art-loving clientele from around the world, including Indonesia, Singapore, Rome, London and the US. “It looks like a Monet” was one of the best compliments Jenny, a dyslexic rug designer telling stories by creating art on textiles, received recently. 

More from Jenny Jones Rugs on ArchiPro.