If Shakespeare knew that someday Sonnet 54 would be praised in permanence via rose-dyed yarn woven into a gradient-shaded wool rug – Infusion “O” rug by the Austrian design team at Pudelskern for Stepevi – he might have considered adding more floral verbiage to his written arrangements.

Infusion “O”. Designed by Pudelskern. Manufactured by Stepevi.

Like a Performance Rug, the Natural Rose-Tinted Infusion “O” by Pudelskern for Stepevi is a Class Above the Rest.

William Shakespeare writes his Sonnet 54 as a glorious praise of truth, saying:

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly
When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo’d and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.

Pudelskern begins the performance with the Infusion “O” rug made of sheep wool in multiple layers to transcribe his words. Stepevi enters the scene as a sustainable manufacturer who discovered the beauty of color discarded by distilled roses in Southern Turkey’s Isparta province, where rose gardens stretch across the land. Finishing the act, the byproduct of distilled roses creates the tint, or natural dye, that the companies fuse together as the climax of the story, thus creating a high quality rug with a sustainable dye that evokes the truth Shakespeare marvels at throughout his verses.

Promising and prudent, Pudelskern and Stepevi bring Shakespeare’s words into practicality through the use of authentic roses for tinting. But shall we never forget that “the rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem”… as the natural dye in the Infusion “O” rug.

About the Designers: Pudelskern is made up of three Austrian designers – Horst Philipp, Nina Mair, and Georg Öhler – who believe in “the necessity to add more layers to a design”. Officially accomplishing their goal in the Infusion “O” rug, they demonstrate similar effectiveness in their other projects since founding in 2006. The team is made up of the three of them with backgrounds in architecture, design, and cabinet-making, forming a stellar trio of skills that lend themselves to a material experimenting lab which helps them set their work apart from typical design teams.