When I first meet Lauren Caris Cohan, ’s Chief Creative Officer, her Zoom background is admittedly what I notice first: she’s sat on a red sofa in the living room of a stunning mid-century home in Laurel Canyon; there’s a sandy-brick fireplace in the background, and just beyond, I catch a glimpse of the lush backyard. “There’s a Koening Case Study House down the street,” she tells me. It might seem an unusual place to take a Zoom call — until you learn why she’s there. Sustainable clothing brand Reformation has launched a rug collection with French rugmaker , and the home is where they’re shooting their campaign. “I actually live down the street, and I had a little love affair with this house that has been on the market (that I haven’t quite understood why it’s on the market) for a couple of years that I think is magnificent. So, we rented it for a few months to have activations in to showcase the rugs because it just felt so befitting of this whole concept.”
The more you learn about Cohan, the more the brand’s foray into home decor begins to make sense. The multi-hyphenate creative, along with her husband, also runs a design firm called Bob Audrey, which specializes in the renovation and restoration of mid-century homes in the Hills. “One of the things that I noticed in that work is the way that design and architecture photos travel across social media, and it’s so unique and compelling,” she says. “It got me starting to think about how we might reach people who may not know Reformation or may not think that the brand is for them.”
Rugs became a natural choice to extend the brand world. “They were already a part of our brand storytelling in retail, and our retail design is pretty beloved,” she says. “The hope is that people who may or may not know the brand will connect with this kind of emotional storytelling and see the brand for the first time. And for people who know Ref, they have an opportunity to put us on their floors instead of in their closets.”
The brand’s collaboration with Thomas Coccimiglio, founder of Les Editions de Tapis, has been years in the making. (They were introduced by Parisian firm , which designed Reformation’s Soho flagship back in 2023). Originally, the brand sourced existing rugs from Coccimiglio’s portfolio, but as their collaborative relationship evolved, he began making custom designs exclusive to the brand, featuring motifs as diverse as jumping greyhounds and palm trees. “Every single one of our stores now has some expression of his rugs in it,” Cohan tells me. “Each store has a little bit of its own DNA that is reflective of the geo that it exists in, and so when we are designing these stores, we take all of the materiality and its location into account, and then work with Thomas to create a story that is unique to each store.” The playful designs immediately caught the eye of shoppers, who began asking where they could buy them. This demand became the driver of this latest collaboration, which makes the rugs accessible to Reformation’s audience for the first time.
The resulting collection, according to Cohan, sits at the intersection of “L.A. nonchalance and Parisian elegance.” (Think “Marie Antoinette meets Chateau Marmont.”) The nine limited-edition, made-to-order designs begin as hand drawings and are then hand-knotted by artisans in India and Nepal using natural materials including wool, linen, and silk. The offerings include: Chintz, in three sizes, with two palm trees crossed in the centre; Oiseau and Tree, in two sizes, a kind of surrealist composition; Swan Fan, which features the bird motif in two configurations, one circular and the other rectangular with chamfered edges; Le Chat, a playful illustration of a tabby cat walking across a solid taupe base; and the most traditional of the lot, Le Classique, with a simple, linework border.
While the pieces were designed collaboratively between Cohan and Coccimiglio, she attests that “he is the absolute architect of everything created in this collection,” and her role was to be “a partner to steer and make sure that it felt on brand,” explaining that the brand had more influence on the colour palette to ensure cohesion with the coordinating holiday collection, while Coccimiglio took the lead on the motifs and concepts. Creative autonomy is essential to Reformation’s approach to collabs, but ultimately, success comes down to selecting collaborators that are aligned from the outset. “Everything that we do has a sense of humour and irreverence, and his rugs and his sensibility as a textile designer reflect that,” says Cohan. “It’s just such a perfect match for us.”
Sustainability has been a central tenet of the Reformation brand from the beginning, and the same rules apply in both fashion and furnishings. There’s, of course, a focus on selecting natural materials, and making the rugs to order keeps waste to a minimum, but the brand is also doing what it can to give the pieces the longest life possible. “A big tenet of circularity is making things well and making them to last,” says Anne-Marie Albracht, Reformation’s Senior Director of PR and Communications. “That kind of investment in quality is what makes the biggest difference. We really hope people love them for many, many years in their homes, and they become heirloom pieces of their own right.”
But beyond quality, what gives a product true longevity is design that is both specific and enduring. “The rugs are quite simple, but that little, tiny injection of personality is what makes them so special,” says Cohan. “I think right now what’s happening with trends is very simple wool rugs in a variation of colours, and it’s beautiful. But I think at some point it ends up feeling a bit homogenized. So, this is the antithesis of that.”
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