Narrative Threads Blog
Scroll through our Narrative Threads blog to enjoy behind-the-scenes insight on special projects for leading interior designers and architects.
Scroll through our Narrative Threads blog to enjoy behind-the-scenes insight on special projects for leading interior designers and architects.
Creative Matters has used wool in our floor coverings for over 35 years, highlighting our dedication to this natural material. Over the years, we have worked closely with The International Wool Textile Organisation (IWTO), the leading global authority on wool standards. In 2022, Creative Matters' founder, Carol Sebert, was appointed chairperson of the Wool Interiors Working Group. This group includes members from 41 countries and collaborates with the IWTO Sustainability Group.
Recently, Carol spearheaded the creation of the IWTO Wool Carpet Care Guide with a group of the world’s leading industry experts and WoolSafe, an organization dedicated to advanced research into the care of wool products.
As 2023 draws to a close, our team is reflecting on a momentous year. Filled with groundbreaking achievements, innovative designs, and a transformative shift in leadership, the past 12 months have been enriched with great success and creativity.
After an incredible 35 years at the helm of Creative Matters and on the world stage of floor covering design, it is with mixed emotions we announce that Carol Sebert is moving on to other creative endeavours. While Carol creates more beautiful art in her studio at an old Ontario country house, Managing Partners Ana Cunningham and Ali McMurter are well-prepared to lead the firm into an exciting future. We asked Carol to look back on some key moments that made Creative Matters what it is today.
Since Creative Matters opened its doors 35 years ago, the vast majority of our floor coverings have been made from wool. This includes our custom projects for hotels, offices, retail spaces and homes, and our 14 rug collections. We sat down with Carol Sebert, Managing Partner and Founder of the firm, to discuss the reasons for this decision both historically and moving forward.
Shaped rugs steal the spotlight, they’re a conversation piece on the floor and they make spaces exciting. Over 35 years we’ve designed a lot of rugs in abstract shapes so we’d thought we’d have a little retrospective. We chose five rugs designed in recent times and five rugs from our 90s archive. From the elegant to the eclectic to the practical, scroll down and enjoy them.
Although 2021 was particularly challenging, it was remarkable how our clients and suppliers around the world - along with our team in Toronto - came together to create some of the best floor and wall coverings ever. We asked the three Creative Matters Managing Partners to choose 9 favourites.
January is usually a busy month for trade shows for those of us who create handknotted rugs with the Domotex show in Germany and Maison+Objet in France. This year however, we participated in our first virtual trade show - an innovative event organized by COVER, the world’s leading magazine for handmade carpets and textiles for interiors.
When our President Carol Sebert met Matthew Rowe from Campaign for Wool - Canada at the opening of our new showroom in September 2019, little did we know that a year later we would be launching a capsule collection of rugs made from 100% Canadian wool.
We were delighted to debut our Raven rug at the Maison&Objet design show in Paris last month. Raven is the first in a series of rugs we are currently calling The Storytelling Collection. Each of the rugs will be based on the artwork of a Canadian indigenous artist and recreated in a handtufted or handknotted technique.
As President of Creative Matters I am often asked to choose some highlights from the closing year. This time however, I find myself most excited by the major initiatives we took in 2019 to move our business into the new decade.
Last month Hy’s Steakhouse returned to Toronto’s financial district with a spectacular new flagship.The impressive 18,000-square-foot space was designed by our long-time client Elaine Thorsell of BOTI Interiors. Creative Matters President Carol Sebert was tasked with developing the carpet designs for all three storeys.
Rug designer may not sound like a career path that involves a wide variety of international travel but at Creative Matters it surely does. As in many jobs there are trade shows to attend, but what really racks up the passport stamps are the trips we make to supervise production of our rugs.
Late 2018 Cheryl Krismer of Crayon Design came to us with two detailed hand-drawn sketches for two flights of a spiral staircase in a spacious contemporary Toronto residence. We then worked together to turn her exquisite sketches on small pieces of tracing paper into fully developed designs for each runner.
In November we celebrated 30 years since our President Carol Sebert founded Creative Matters. To honour the occasion the whole team flew from Toronto to New York for three days staying at a big house in the country and taking the train into the city each morning.
As Creative Matters will celebrate its 30th anniversary in November, our management team took the opportunity to look back at our designs - and the process of designing - through the years.
Fair trade is a critical issue for our floorcoverings that are woven by hand. This includes our collection rugs, as well as custom projects that may be handwoven in Nepal, India or Afghanistan.
Do you feel like exploring the most intriguing pieces that shaped Creative Matters in 2017? Then look no further than this list of some of our designers' favourites which run the gamut from a 36-foot (11-metre) residential runner to a wall hanging for an airport to a corporate rug sprayed with mustard yellow.
Much excitement greeted the opening of The Loren at Pink Beach in Bermuda earlier this month because it introduced a contemporary hotel experience to an island draped in tradition. Led by President and owner Carol Sebert, our creation of nine floorcovering designs contribute much to its modernist appeal.
She doesn't like to choose favourites because every design is a triumph of its own, but here - from the multitude of rugs designed by the Creative Matters team during 2016 - are president and owner Carol Sebert's top five rug designs of 2016.
In November 2015, the Faena Hotel Miami Beach opened to international applause and we were proud to have contributed four rugs to its fantastical aesthetic. As you would expect, the rugs excelled themselves in quality, luxe and colour.
The Perennial Collection of wool and silk handknotted rugs first hit the floors at the New York International Carpet Show in September 2015. We then proudly displayed seven more designs at the European shows in early 2016.
We launched the Arctic Collection with five designs in late 2015 at the New York International Carpet Show. Meanwhile our artisans in Nepal and India were fervently knotting away in wool and silk so that we could present the second half of the collection at our January shows in Germany and France.
We asked our designers for their favourite rugs - 8 designers, 8 very different choices. Reading though the reasons for their selections, we realize the criteria for a successful rug are endless.
Creative Matters will debut two new collections on September 19 at the New York International Carpet Show. While many architects and interior designers know us for our custom projects, we also offer an increasing selection of ready-designed pieces. With the new designs, we now have six collections to browse on our website and to purchase from our retailers.
We continue to surprise our clients, and even ourselves, with the range and beauty of effects that can be created with the handtufted quality. We were particularly reminded of this when two of the artists from the Canada House project visited our studio in May.
In the latter half of February, CMI basked in the glow of international media attention for the 29 rugs it created for the refurbishment of Canada House in London. One of the most delightful comments came from Henrietta Thompson in the U.K.’s The Telegraph ...
February 19 was a particularly exciting day for Creative Matters. We were finally able to reveal a project that had involved all our designers for many months in 2014 - no less than 29 area rugs with very different designs for Canada House in London.
As far as we are concerned, the most important shift for 2015 is our new website. We’ve made it easier and more inspirational for interior designers to browse our custom carpet portfolio as well as our carpet and wallpaper collections. We’ll be updating it constantly with photography of our latest feats in custom interior design but if, in the meantime, you’d like to know what our designers are predicting for the upcoming year, read on …
By Carol Sebert, Principal
Even though our design hub is based at our head office in Toronto, an equally important part of our work takes place in the countries where our carpets are physically produced. We regularly visit India, Nepal, Thailand and now China to liaise with the skilled artisans who bring our creations to life.
In March, I was back at the “temporary field offices” in India and Nepal. After 25 years of touring these beautiful but challenging countries, you might think I’d have reached a been-there-seen-that attitude. Actually, the reverse is true – every trip is still full of new discoveries.