Kramis introduces vegan cowhide rug

The carpet manufacturer Kramis, from Altbüron in the Swiss canton of Lucerne, has introduced a vegan design to its product range: '4 cows at the water trough'. The designer is Christoph Missall, a trained carpenter, architect and furniture designer with an office in Constance, who wanted to create a vegan rug using cowhide patches as a motif.

Missall was inspired by a childhood memory of his grandfather's brown cowhide, according to Kramis’ product specification. “While I was working on this design, I imagined cows standing peacefully around a trough on a mountain pasture. The rest is geometry and artistic freedom,” Missall is quoted as saying. In the beginning there is the idea, he continues, “and then the form follows the function”.

Like other Kramis designs, the new rug is made of 100 per cent linen. Pure linen carpets, explains the company, “stand out due to their high sheen”. The vegan rug has a minimum size of 200 centimeters and is available round or square. The colour scheme is also customizable: according to Kramis, an interior designer from the German city Ratingen preferred the carpet in a version with blue patches instead of brown.

With the new design, Kramis is responding to the “vegan wave” that has “fully arrived” in major cities such as Zurich, Basel and Berlin, it writes. “And because the cows didn't die, they are still drinking from the water trough today”. ce/mm