Graduate entrepreneur’s rug business gets global audience
Adriana Tavares specialises in the creation of ‘bespoke hand tufted rugs that embrace shape, colour and innovation’. She will be taking a collection of especially designed, 12 ‘Toppiece Footstools’, to the London Design Festival in September.
Tue, 19 May 2015 12:48:00 BST
Clients warm to entrepreneur’s designer rugs and global fashion company displays her work as their featured artist
FOR many designers, being named as a featured artist at the prestigious London Design Festival can seem like a dream, but not for Huddersfield graduate Adriana Tavares (pictured left).
After showing one of her collections at the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair and the New Designers exhibition last year, Adriana was approached by the global fashion company Anthropologie, to display her work as their featured artist at the annual design festival taking place in September.
Adriana, who specialises in the creation of ‘bespoke hand tufted rugs that embrace shape, colour and innovation’, will be taking a collection of 12 ‘Toppiece Footstools’, especially designed for the festival, and all made while running her rug-making business, Adriana Tavares Rugs.
The company has grown from strength to strength, which in turn has increased Adriana’s confidence as a designer.
“I want to change people’s perception of what a rug looks like,” said Adriana. “It’s not just a rug on a floor it’s like a drawing. They don’t just have to be block colours and shaped like rectangles,” she said.
Pictured right: Adriana creates the colours in her rugs by mixing coloured yarns together to make a new colours, similar to mixing paint.
As well as toppiece footstools and quirky rugs, Adriana makes wall hangings and also creates unique pieces on commission. This involves working closely with the buyer to design and make their dream product.
Adriana has set up her rug making and design business with the help of the University’s Enterprise Team in The Duke of York Young Entrepreneur Centre (DOY YEC).
The team assists enterprising students and recent graduates like Adriana to develop their business ideas through one-to-one meetings with their business advisors, a series of business skills events and where appropriate, access to proof of concept funding.
This has also provided her with a professional base for the business, hot-desking and free use of the electronic facilities she needs to keep her online business growing.
Pictured left are two rugs that Adriana has interpreted from drawings.
Life nearly threw Adriana in a very different direction as she originally wanted to become a teacher. It wasn’t until the completion of her degree when she was awarded the Vice-Chancellors Scholarship for the opportunity to undertake a Masters by Research (MRes), which is only offered to those students achieving marks over 80%, that Adriana decided she wanted to go on to further study and run her own business.
Although constantly busy, Adriana is pleased with the direction she’s gone and says most of the inspiration for her designs comes out of the research for her Masters.
“For my MRes I’m researching the value of children’s art between the 1930s and 1960s at The National Arts Education Archive based in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park,” said Adriana. “Back then it was all about the intrinsic values behinds children’s art and the way it should be taught to really harness the child’s self
-expression,” she said.
“With the cuts to funding children’s education, this is no longer the case. Children are taught just enough to get them a grade and as a result self-expression has gone out of the window. I am going to take some of their values and apply them to the 21st century,” she added.
Adriana still has a real love for teaching and whilst working part-time for the mental-health charity Support to Recovery, she runs and teaches some of their creative workshops for adults.
“I never thought I would be working in mental health,” said Adriana. “But alongside running my business, I absolutely love it.”
To view Adriana’s website and extensive portfolio go to http://www.adrianatavares.co.uk/.
