The founders of luxury carpet brand Fort Street Studio spill the secrets on an upcoming collection to be unveiled at Sotheby’s New York
In the 1970s and 80s, artists Janis Provisor and Brad Davis seemed to be living the dream. The couple lived in a sprawling loft in New York and both had thriving careers, with esteemed institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum snapping up their paintings.
But they walked away from it all. Keen to learn more about Chinese art, architecture and design, the couple upped sticks and moved to Hangzhou in the early 1990s. There, they collaborated with some local weavers on a pet project to transform one of their paintings into a silk carpet for their New York home.
That project snowballed into two carpets, then three, then a whole collection, which led the couple to establish their luxury carpet brand Fort Street Studio. All of Fort Street Studio’s carpets are still made in Hangzhou, but they’re now sold out of showrooms in Hong Kong, New York and Los Angeles and can be spotted in the homes of Brad Pitt, Elton John and Madonna.
What are you working on at the moment?
Brad: We’ve recently created a new collection of wild silk limited edition carpets, which are being launched by the Design Department at Sotheby’s New York in a special exhibition in June 2018. For this collection, we wanted to create fine lines, delicate transitions, and some very special pieces that will become collector’s items. Each carpet will be released in an edition of five to eight, depending on the piece.