Tai Ping presents Legami by Elena Salmistraro

Bespoke rug producer Tai Ping has collaborated with Italian designer Elena Salmistraro to produce a series of six hand-tufted rugs inspired by the human hand as a symbol of connection and exchange

Luxury rug producer Tai Ping was founded in Hong Kong in in 1956 and has since become renowned for bespoke rugs and floor coverings crafted by its skilled artisans. The studio also has long history of collaborating with design talent from around the world and across disciplines. In 2023, Tai Ping partnered with pioneering Italian designer Elena Salmistraro on a new collection of six hand-tufted rugs. Named Legami, the collection takes inspiration from the human hand, both as a graphic and conceptual theme, as a symbol of human connection and exchange.

Committed to developing innovative collections for a contemporary world, Tai Ping considers Salmistraro to be one of the most exciting modern designers today, respected both for her imaginative creative style and meticulous designs. The collection expresses the Milan-based designer’s particular approach to creativity, which marries design, art and illustration. Admired for her poetic and emotive creations, she was named Frame magazine’s Designer of the Year in 2022.

At the heart of Legami is the theme of relationships, embodied in the shape of the hand. Perhaps more than any other symbol, the hand represents the values of exchange, closeness and humanity. Using stylised graphics that outline sinuous and complex shapes, Salmistraro has developed the concept in a series of rugs, one for each finger — circular for the thumb, and rectangular for the forefinger, middle, ring and little finger — plus a final carpet dedicated to the hand itself. Each of the six designs features intertwining and overlapping silhouettes, recalling the figures of fingers, hands and arms, as well as musical instruments and other symbols. The colour palette is energetic and unmistakably Salmistraro, with saturated shades of blue, green and brown, as well as pastel colours from yellow to light blue and pink. Notably, no one individual element prevails, rather each element works together to create a holistically dynamic and playful effect that livens up any space.

Tai Ping’s craftspeople worked closely with the designer to transform her original designs into a series of carpets using their unparalleled expertise in hand-tufting. The rich materiality of the textiles’ surfaces is achieved by alternating areas of New Zealand wool with silks and felted wool backgrounds. The dynamic three-dimensional effect is created through different tufting techniques, ranging from the various lengths of cut pile to loop piles. 

‘The most fascinating thing to me, when I think of this exceptional collection of rugs, is the various manual processes that lie behind the making of each Legami rug,’ Salmistraro says. ‘Form, colour and material take on a primordial value, which emphasises the gesture, the embrace, the bond.’

Images by Beppe Brancato