PEOPLE
360 MIAMI LIVING
B Y M L S TA F F. I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y O F S O N YA W I N N E R .
Some designers use colour. Sonya Winner (sonyawinner.com)
has spent the better part of two decades understanding it:
how it behaves, how it moves, how it transforms a room and
the mood of people within it.
Sonya founded her London Rug Design Studio in 2009, but
her path to rug design was characteristically unconventional.
After fifteen years running a successful graphic design
practice, creating 8 non-fiction books, and building a digital
portrait photography business, she arrived at woven textiles
by accident — literally. A fall from a horse left her with a
broken back and wrist, hospitalised for two months and in
a fibreglass back brace for six more. During her recovery,
a childhood friend invited her to be one of 40 artists and
designers to create a rug for an exhibition marking 40
years of Aram Design. That first rug was picked up by the
international press and, to Sonya's complete surprise, won
an award from Elle Décor Magazine. Unable to continue as a
photographer due to her injuries, she launched her rug studio
at the London Design Festival 2011.
The debut changed everything. Her first collection —
including the uniquely graphic rugs: After Matisse, Bubbles,
Tree Trunk and Deep Sunset rugs — generated immediate
international press and sales across the USA, Australia, Japan,
Singapore and Europe. The world, it turned out, had been
waiting for exactly this.
Colour as Conviction
Sonya Winner
and the Art of the Statement Rug
