Designer Rugs hold the floor at this years Melbourne Cup

Racing season may be over but Designer Rugs pulled off a big win this year with the rugs for the Emirates birdcage marquee at Melbourne Cup 2016.

While the Melbourne Cup sees a line up of the world’s best horses compete in the race that stops the nation, the Melbourne Cup birdcage sees a line up of Australia’s best designers. This year Silvana Azzi Heras lead the design of the Emirates marquee creating a venue to celebrate Australia.

Heras is Head Designer of production company Bazmark Inq and has worked alongside Catherine Martin and Baz Luhrmann for the past 18 years. Heras designed an Australiana-inspired homestead in the style of a traditional Queenslander. Inside, she took inspiration from Emirates’ local destinations – Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide – and filled the interior with vibrant flora and fauna. There were motifs of eucalyptus mint, waratahs, kangaroo paws and cockatoos throughout, as well as a four-metre tall Queensland Bottle Tree taking pride of place in the centre of the marquee.

Heras looks to the style of 1930s Australia for furnishings and patterns and brought this Art Deco flavour to her contemporary design. She designed an Axminster carpet – “Eucalyptus” – and two rugs – “Gumnut Paradise” and “Waratah Wonderland” – for the marquee, which we had the pleasure of producing.

Our Senior Designer, Lia Pielli, described the designs as “classically beautiful interpretations of Australian flowers and parrots; very William Morris-esque.” The “Eucalyptus” carpet used a two-colour palette with interlacing and repetitive motifs, while the rugs were rendered in more colourful palettes – “Gumnut Paradise” in shades of pink with blue and khaki, and “Waratah Wonderland” in rich red, orange and green along with light blue and grey.

Melbourne Cup is one day of the year when people come together in their fashionable finest and we were delighted to be part of the revelry at this year’s Melbourne Cup.