Designer Linn readies for launch

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 8/27/2003 12:00:00 AM

New York — Industry veteran Valborg Fletre Linn is gearing up for the launch this fall of her new high-end area rug company, VFL Designs.

Linn, who for 10 years worked for Park B. Smith Ltd. as its director of design and merchandising, has spent the past 16 months working as an independent designer. She will be previewing her initial line at her design studio loft in SoHo during the upcoming New York Home Textiles Market, she told HTT.

While she has done freelance work in the past, this new company represents her first solo enterprise.

"In these grim economic times, it's important to think creatively about how you are going to go about doing business as well as making creative designs," Linn said.

VFL Designs's new Nepalese-made area rug collection, titled Playing Fields, is composed of made-to-order, 100-knot hand-knotted Tibetan wool with silk accents. There are 11 patterns, which Linn describes as graphic and abstract. She said they fall into three groupings — plain color fields (color blocks), linear structural fields (architectural line structures) and chalk fields (hand drawn-type designs). The designs are each available in up to four colorways — sienna, charcoal, aqua and jade.