Oct 15

Oct 15 TheW+ Interior: La Manufacture Cogolin

Thanks to our win at the Design Anthology Awards 2019 for “Best Interior Designer of the Year” in February, we recently travelled to Paris and Saint Tropez care of sponsors, La Manufacture Cogolin and The House of Tai Ping. The trip started off with a couple of days in Paris to attend the Maison et Objet sourcing fair, plus a tour of La Manufacture Cogolin showroom at Le Quartier Saint Germain with the brand’s Managing Director, Sarah Henry. Sarah was nice enough to walk me through the new showroom, introduce a brief history of La Manufacture Cogolin, plus unveiled for me the newest collaborative rug collection dubbed “Botanical Rugs” by artists Tim Simpson and Sarah van Gameren, co-founders of the Art Group, Glithero.

La Manufacture Cogolin showroom in Paris.

The Botanical Series by Glithero for Cogolin.

In her showroom, a photo with Cogolin’s Managing Director, Sarah Henry.

The award prize from La Manufacture Cogolin included flights to Paris from Hong Kong- and then a subsequent flight to Toulon- only 45 minutes away from the Town of Cogolin, the birthplace and location of the factory. According to Sarah and Chief Designer, Sandrine Giraud, who was there to tour me at the Cogolin factory, Le Manufacture Cogolin as we know of today was purchased by the Hong Kong-based House of Tai Ping- a multi-brand distributor and now manufacturing company. Tai Ping’s investment in the factory included existing looms which date back to the 1920’s. Originally a hand-knotting and hand woven-based factory, a textile engineer named Jean Lauer purchased the workshop in 1928- subsequently adding hand-weaving Jacquard looms dating back to the 19th Century and still in use today. The hand-woven rugs were such a hit, that LMCogolin’s collaborations grew to include unique designs by designers such as “Jules Leleu, Christian Berard, Jean-Michel Frank, Sir David Hicks, and artist Jean Cocteau”, all now available as part of the Archival collections.

Founded in the early 1900’s the factory of Le Manufacture Cogolin.

Designer Sandrine Giraud has worked with many Collaborators including India Mahdavi and Stephane Parmentier.

Today the rugs are still fabricated on the same hand looms using Jacquard mechanisms from the 1800s which “combine needles, cylinders, and punch-cards which function like sheet music, guiding hooks that raise threads according to the placement of holes in the cards to create textured designs and elaborate patterns.” The older style hand knotting processes have been moved to their workshops in Nepal. The archive work is done in those factories.

32 Unique Colours- just for Le Manufacture Cogolin

Depending on the manufacturing type and design, from patterned weaves (Cantre) to textured weaves and flat weaves (Tisses Plats) to hand knotted (Noues Mains) type rugs- the use can be anywhere from traditional indoor to semi-outdoor lanai spaces (not directly under the Sun). Natural materials include wool, cotton, jute, linen, silk, and raffia. The present day LMCogolin palette is unique, and is made up of 32 specific shades developed by Sarah Henry and Sandrine Giraud with their collaborative Designers and Artists, for the brand. This is why the Le Manufacture Cogolin style always looks current, new, fresh, and young. From what I observed the factory is very much a boutique- there were about 8 women on the looms, 4 women doing finishing work, 1 man spraying protective silicone to the back of the rugs, and about 5 people on admin total between Cogolin and Paris. All orders are made in Cogolin by hand, on those looms- if not by the artisans in Nepal. This most likely explains the high cost of the rugs, and long lead time of fabrication for each peace, and the ultimate quality product one receives when the rugs are delivered to their spaces.