Dominican Republic native Soranyi Soliver launched her rug brand Sosomo in 2020, transforming her passion for colour and form into contemporary colourful rugs made by craftsmen locally. Focusing on ‘transmitting sensations’, Soliver’s debut collections feature abstract, colourful compositions, and shapes that range from traditional geometries to more organic forms. Balanced and harmonious, Sosomo rugs feature palettes inspired by the Caribbean and, according to Soliver, combine ‘experimentation, risk, creativity, fun and a bit of madness’.
Sosomo: Dominican creativity through rug weaving
A portrait of Sosomo founder Soranyi Soliver with the ‘Likuid’ rug by Karim Rashid
The brand’s first collaborative collection includes pieces by New York-based designer Karim Rashid. The series includes two colourful rugs that merge Sosomo’s penchant for bright chromatic compositions and forms, and Rashid’s sinuous geometries and bold colour choices.
A ‘blobular formed rug’, ‘Ikona’ features an undulated edge framed in blue and purple, with an abstract composition at the centre. Its design contains, says Rashid, his five favourite icons: ‘time, body, love, fluid, and blobism’.
More traditionally shaped, ‘Likuid’ is a square white rug featuring different pile heights (an artisanal detail that Sosomo includes in many of its rugs). Featuring Rashid’s preferred colour palette, the rug is defined by a pattern reminiscent of the 1960s, with shapes in red, orange, yellow, light blue and purple. ‘The amorphous, intertwining forms create a liquid-like, fluid pattern that speaks of softness, minimal yet sensual and warm for any interior,’ says the designer.
Detail of ‘Ikona’ rug, by Karim Rashid for Sosomo
The handmade quality of these designs brings Rashid’s touch to a different dimension, compared to the sleek, digitally developed forms of much of his design work.
With this collection, notes Soliver, Sosomo takes its first step into the international design world, bringing Dominican creativity and craft to a wider global audience.
Ikona rug, by Karim Rashid for Sosomo
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