Just before COVID-19 took over our lives, a Slovenian interior designer and architect named Tina Rugelj, reached out to us while getting ready to exhibit her innovative work at the prestigious Milano Furniture Fair.

It is quite often that designers, students and artists who are aware of the environental damage caused by lost fishing gear and are inspired by our journey from waste to wear, contact us. Sometimes, they need to get their hands on fishing nets for their projects and other times it is part of their research process. In Tina’s case, she wanted to tell her story together with us!

The Milano Furniture Fair might have been cancelled in 2020 but Tina continued to work on her project and over the summer, completed the collection she called “Tales of the Adriatic” consisting of 5 furniture pieces all telling a different story of the Adriatic.

The Plankton Carpet is probably the first carpet that truly glows. The knots, which are coated with a phos­phorescent colour, are knitted to­gether in a blue base Sedna carpet made of ECONYL® yarn. Once night arrives, the knots start to glow and paint a spectacular image of a glistening sea surface. The making of the Plankton Carpet is both a tribute to traditional fishing craft as well as a warning over the growing problem of overfishing and sea pollution. The carpet is made from recycled nylon waste, of which a part consists of abandoned fishing nets, also known as ghost nets, that drift around the ocean and are re­sponsible for the needless death of countless marine animals.

The other pieces of the collection are a chair, lamp and small tables.

We hope Tina will be able to present her ingenious carpet at next year’s Milano Furniture Fair!

Photographs by: @klemen_razinger

If you are an artist or student and need our input for your project, please contact [email protected]