CARPET
Alternative NOW
Above left: Woosie Above: Play Studio
The flooring brand has rebranded Alternative has spent 26 years exploring what its world will look like. Today this British brand – formerly Alternative Flooring - is built on the three pillars of people, product and planet: people are those who make Alternative alternative; products champion craftmanship and design, and planet means giving back with what it calls smart sustainability. For Alternative it’s never ‘just a carpet’ but design-led flooring that gets as much attention and adulation as any other interiors feature. Carpets, rugs and runners are made from the finest wool, natural and faux fibres where texture, colour and pattern surprise and delight: expect quirky patterns in British wool, eco undyed wools and exotic natural fibres. The shift to simply Alternative sees this award-winning brand embrace interiors in a more sustainable, lifestyle direction,
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Interiors Monthly May 2022
with plenty of fun along the way, as a series of films online demonstrate. The new Play Studio stand is the result of years of adventurous brand building, serious product investment and total commitment to retail and service culture. ‘We inspire people to express their personality with our designs and want everyone – retailers, clients, designers, suppliers – to feel happy about our work together. We’re unconventional, playfully disruptive. Choosing flooring should be fun,’ says Lorna Haigh, Alternative creative and marketing director. Play Studio has two parts: Play Wall shelving and a Play Table. The Perspex chrome-finished shelves make selecting simple, with carpets displayed with backlit graphics. It provides more than 40 carpet ranges in a tactile, easy-to-use system. The Play Table provides space to use the Design Workshop for interior schemes. Each of the product sections has its own QR code for customers to interact with and view online in detail. Every product has linked lifestyle imagery. Alternative’s investment in innovative collections and influential collaborations continues. Woosie is its first wool sisal blend. Fresh from Alternative’s student competition with Glasgow School of Art and The Campaign for Wool is a modern tartan, celebrating young British design and championing British wool. A pillar message is Alternative cares about treading lightly. Every sample delivered involves carbon emissions so its partnership with Ecologi sees a tree planted for every sample order placed
online. So far almost 9,000 have been planted. Alternative At Home is a new section on its website where real people welcome us into their spaces. Richard Hackett, Online tools Alternative sales director make choosing flooring enjoyable. Make Me A Rug lets shoppers create a personalised rug, which ordered online can be delivered to their nearest Alternative retailer with the Click ‘n’ Collect option. The Show Me My Room visualiser now works for stairs, giving customers confidence in choosing carpet and making a purchase. ‘It’s clear to me that Alternative’s heart is bringing people together and delivering great products. Our brand is committed to retail, to buying locally, to making sure our beautiful products look their best by being fitted perfectly by our selected professional retail partners,’ says Richard Hackett, recently appointed sales director. ‘We want to be part of a progressive interiors brand that has strong values and does what it says: delivering with outstanding product, bright marketing and superb service. It is an exciting time for both our customers and people. We continue to find the best ways for people to fall in love with our “manu-crafted” characterful floors, making them the life and soul of any interior.’ Visit: www.alternativeflooring.com
