Collection: Retro Rugs

That is a lot of pattern to take in at once. Retro is a style where people recognise the look long before they know which rug they want, so here is how we would narrow it down, in the order the decisions actually matter: first the pattern, then the surface, then the size.

Starting with the word itself. A retro rug is newly made and carries the graphic language of the nineteen fifties, sixties and seventies, with shapes drawn big and colour laid down flat. Nothing about the rug is old. The print is what is borrowed, and put one in a plain room and the room stops being plain.

We have been choosing rugs since 1907 and this is the corner of the shop where we buy with the most conviction: not printed copies of period patterns, but the design houses whose patterns everyone else borrows from. Every order goes out with free EU delivery, and if you are anywhere near Antwerp you are welcome to come and stand on them first.

What Makes a Rug Retro Rather Than Mid-Century

The two words get used interchangeably and they are not quite the same thing, which is worth knowing before you start looking.

Mid-century points at a specific period, roughly the two decades after the war, and at a specific restraint: muted colour, clean line, nothing shouted. Retro is broader and braver. It takes in the fifties, sixties and seventies together, and it keeps the loud end that mid-century purists leave out, the poppies and the zigzags and the full-strength ochre.

What every rug above shares is scale and flatness. The pattern is drawn big, so you read it from the doorway rather than from standing over it, and each shape is filled in solid with no shading, the way a poster is printed. That flatness is what makes a retro rug look graphic instead of merely decorated, and it is the quickest way to tell a real mid-century design from an imitation.

Where to Start: Marimekko and Orla Kiely

If you want the shortest route to a retro rug you will be happy with, start with the two names that leave here most often.

Marimekko is the safest brilliant choice in this collection. Tiiliskivi, a simple brick outline in two colours, is the one we sell most of, because it is bold without being busy and works in almost any room. Unikko, the poppy, is the braver sister and the one people fall in love with in the showroom. Isot Kivet, big flat stones, sits between the two.

Orla Kiely is the other reliable answer, and the most recognisably sixties thing we sell. Multi Stem in kingfisher or the classic olive is a genuine bestseller for us, and Giant Multi Stem is the same idea drawn twice as large for a big living room. All hand tufted wool, all in the olive, walnut and mustard palette that makes a room look considered rather than loud.

Beyond those two, Louis de Poortere weave their retro designs in Belgium as flatwoven jacquard, and Brink & Campman have a wool quality called Spring Seventies that is exactly what the name suggests.

Geometric Retro Rugs or One Big Floral

Nearly every retro rug is one or the other, and it is worth deciding which you are before you start comparing, because the two rarely appeal to the same person.

Geometric retro rugs are the workhorse: circles, diamonds, grids, blocks, zigzags, chequerboards. A grid never argues with anything, so it sits happily in a room that already has patterned cushions or a full bookcase, and it reads as structure. This is the one to buy if the rug has to get along with things you are not replacing.

A big retro floral is the one to buy when you want the rug to be the reason people look down. These are not small and sweet. They are enormous, outlined in a single thick line and filled in like a poster, and they want a plain sofa and a calm wall. Given those two things, they are the most striking rug in the shop.

There is a quieter third route people overlook: a wide seventies stripe in two or three colours. Same era, same confidence, far less demanding, and usually the right call for a hallway or a bedroom.

Retro Rugs in Wool, Flatweave or Shag

This decides how the rug feels, and unlike the pattern it cannot be changed afterwards.

Hand tufted wool has a dense soft pile your foot sinks into slightly. Wool takes dye deeper than any synthetic, so the ochres and rusts come out rich and warm and the surface shifts as light crosses it. This is the one for a living room or bedroom, anywhere people sit on the floor or walk barefoot, and it is where the money in this category goes.

A flatwoven retro rug has no pile at all. The pattern comes out sharper because nothing softens the edge of a shape, and the surface stays firm so chairs slide instead of catching. Choose this under a dining table, in a kitchen, or on a floor too good to bury. Many are woven from recycled yarn and several will take a hose down outside.

And a handful are proper shag, a deep seventies pile in mottled wool. There are only a few, they are unmistakably of their decade, and in the right room nothing else comes close.

Retro or Vintage

These two words get mixed up constantly and they lead to completely different rugs, so it is worth two lines.

A retro rug is newly made and wears a crisp pattern from the middle of the last century, in fresh full colour. A vintage rug is also newly made, but its whole design is about looking as though it has aged: faded pattern, worn passages, colour gone quiet, usually over an ornamental drawing. So the difference is crisp against faded, not old against new. We do not sell second-hand or antique rugs, and we say so plainly, because plenty of this market lets you assume otherwise.

Round Retro Rugs, Runners and the Right Size

Retro pattern behaves differently in each format, and the format is where most of the regret in this category comes from.

Buy bigger than feels natural. A beautiful pattern on a rug too small to carry the furniture makes a room look smaller rather than better, and under a seating group the front legs of every seat belong on the rug.

Round retro rugs are a good answer for a square room, because a circle puts something graphic on the floor without giving it a direction. Ø 240 cm works under a seating group and Ø 140 cm in a reading corner or a hall. Retro runners are the most underrated thing on this page: one strong shape repeating the length of a corridor is a genuinely beautiful piece of interior. And for an awkward width, several designs can be made to measure, though those are produced to order, so talk to us before you commit to one.

Order online with free EU delivery, or come and see the collection in our rug shop and showroom in Willebroek, in the Antwerp region, easily reached from Antwerp, Brussels, Mechelen and Sint-Niklaas. Bring the measurements of the room and a photo of your sofa and we will tell you which of these belongs in it.