Sunweave is a Living Product Challenge Petal-certified woven broadloom carpet collection that merges the time-honored craft of woven construction with today’s desire for artisanal materials, authenticity, and warmth in contract spaces. Inspired by women weavers of indigenous cultures around the world, Sunweave evokes the natural patterns found in baskets, blankets, and textiles realized in its biophilic design.
“Sunweave brings the rich appearance and simulation of woven textiles and garments to commercial interiors,” said Jackie Dettmar, Mohawk Group’s vice president of design and product development. “It exudes that feeling of a beautiful fabric that’s artfully created for the floor, celebrating the different textures and clarity of patterning created on Wilton weaving machines.”
Within the collection, Shadow Pass features a grand linear ombré shadow that transitions along the loom and floor plane, and derives its inspiration from the notion of shadows being nature’s handcraft as subtle color and value shifts mimic the sun’s daily progression. To create these effects, Mohawk Group uses traditional Wilton wire looms that use pile wires horizontally across the loom to accentuate the look and feel of weaving on a hand loom. The three-frame Wilton loom gives a flat weaving esthetic that allows for a tight and sophisticated visual most closely associated with hand-woven textiles and objects.
This new carbon-neutral collection builds on the time-honored manufacturing heritage at Mohawk Group’s Karastan mill in Eden, N.C., the country’s largest woven plant, which recently celebrated its 90th anniversary of operation. Red List-free Sunweave is available in broadloom and as a bound area rug and features Mohawk Group’s new yarn system, Heathered Hues. Its texture and blending provide a variegated wool-like appearance as Mohawk Group’s most natural-looking nylon yarn to date. The innovative yarn is dematerialized for a low environmental impact and no water is used in its production.
As part of Sunweave’s Petal Certification and to leave a handprint rather than a footprint, Mohawk Group engaged in a special handprinting partnership with Groundswell to ultimately install 10 smartflower solar systems in communities of concern and at educational institutions with STEM programs across the U.S. To offset the water used in the woven collection’s production, Mohawk Group partnered with Hampton University in Virginia to install 152 low-flow showerheads, resulting in an annual water savings of approximately 4 million gallons.
For more information, visit www.mohawkgroup.com.