LIZA LASEROW

Why Nordic Knots’ Rugs Really Tie the Room Together

By Bonnie Langedijk

From a place to unwind, to a place of work, to an amateur gym, our concept of personal space has evolved. We have a newly found appreciation for our home and are taking pride in how it looks. Over the past two years, we have become our own curators, interior designers, and handymen all at once out of necessity. And we’re ready to invest. 

The global furniture and homeware market surpassed $200 billion in 2020, and by 2025 it’s expected to nearly reach $300 billion. Taking pride in what we allow into our homes pushes us to look for brands that truly represent our taste. What’s worth being part of our daily lives?

Liza Laserow, co-founder of rug company Nordic Knots, offers her take. Run from the Stockholm-based atelier with her husband Fabian Berglund and his brother Felix, the brand stands out in an industry rooted in the old. Elsewhere, Laserow alongside her mother Karin — one of Sweden’s leading antique dealers — runs a namesake business, Laserow, where the two specialize in both European antiques, as well as interior design. Pushing industries into a new era is what Laserow does. We had many questions, so we called her up.

Bonnie: I want to start off with the preconception that Swedish style is minimalist. How would you describe the Swedish aesthetic? 

Liza: To not overdo it, it’s modest and it’s well curated. Look at how Swedes dress. It’s very to the point. It’s practical but stylish. For example, I’m wearing a black cashmere sweater, blue jeans and a pair of black slippers. 

Effortless.

Liza: That’s what I really really think Swedish aesthetic is. If you compare a famous interior designer in the US to a famous interior designer in Sweden, it’s so different. They over furnish spaces in the US. But the younger generation is different, and very inspired by Europe. If you can be like Axel Vervoordt or Rose Uniacke then you got it. There are interior designers in the US who are extremely good at what they’re doing. They’re really good at attention to detail. And it’s a lot harder to mix ten colors or patterns. You have that on one end of the stick and then you have the very material and craftsmanship driven. That’s more Sweden I would say. 

It also seems like taking pride in the way your home looks is a given in most Scandinavian countries. Investing in well designed pieces is almost ordinary.

Liza: We’re spoiled I have to say. That was what we realized when we started Nordic Knots. When you move away, you get a completely different perspective. You realize it’s not a given that people have taken very well care of their homes. 

“It’s modest and it’s well CURATED. Look at how Swedes dress. It’s very to the point. It’s practical but stylish.”

Why do you think that is?

Liza: Culturally we spend a lot of time at home. Rugs and curtains have been a part of Swedish homes for a long time. In the beginning it was for wealthy families to keep out the cold. You had to close the curtains to keep the cold out and rugs on the floor to not freeze your feet off. That’s the cultural difference if you’re looking at it historically. In New York, paying for services is also way more common. Hiring an interior designer is something you do if you have the finances for it. Basically, you have your interior designer, your private trainer and your psychiatrist.

It’s like the holy trinity. Let’s talk about rugs. I actually have no idea how a rug is made. Could you explain a bit more the process of designing and developing one.

Liza: It takes about a year from idea to launch. We want to identify the space where the rugs go, instead of doing the opposite. We collect inspirations to start. Once that’s been defined, we think about how it’s going to be marketed. What photographers do we want to work with? And is there maybe a furniture collector, or a stylist or homeowner we want to work with who fits with what we’re trying to do? From there we create the designs. You design it 2D, and you add the texture to it after. That’s when it really comes alive. With this process you really get closer to our client, in the early stages. That makes the design process much easier.

It’s interesting to think about rugs, and what it adds to your space. Often it’s more of an afterthought for people, while it should actually be at the core of designing a space. 

Liza: Absolutely. That’s why we start at the other end. We don’t create a rug and then think, where do we put it? Instead, we flip it around. We build the world, the client and the muse interior and then we create the rug. 

I love that. And it makes sense with your background in interior design. 

Liza: It does. You start with a home and then you pick the pieces. I think what we’ve succeeded at [with Nordic Knots] is to build a brand in a really traditional market. I don’t know why but rugs are still presented in a really ancient way. There isn’t a really great brand. There are smaller ones, artisanal brands. But I can’t really find anything new that’s grown to the level where we’re at right now. 

That’s true. It’s great to see the rug in the context of an interior. There’s such a diverse spectrum of consumers who are looking for a rug, so you want some point of view from the brand.

Liza: So diverse. It really is. We have a huge clientele that are fairly young, but up to like 45. They’re in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London. France has actually become a great market for us too. But Europe is constantly growing. It’s a client who appreciates design but aren’t [just] designers or creative people.

Definitely. So many brands consider themselves as being for the gallerist, or another creative profession. It always makes me think about how realistic it is to cater to such a niche demographic.

Liza: Yeah, that’s not a big business. 

Maybe it’s a lawyer with great taste, or someone who works in tech.

Liza: Absolutely. We don’t really find out the profession of our clients. But it’s a huge variety. What’s really fun is when you get an order from someone who you know. One order arrived and I got a screenshot from [customer] support. And it was [an order from] a head designer at Louis Vuitton. 

Since we’re talking about lawyers. Your mother works in antiques and you followed in her footsteps. But before you did, you decided to study law. That seems so..

Liza: Off right? 

A bit. Why did you decide to do that?

Liza: It was a very superficial reason. My mom had a best friend, Elisabeth. She was the head of a Swedish bank in London. She would pull up in her little sports car, and walk out. This is in the 90s. She had dark, high curly hair, a lot of makeup but perfect. Dark long red nails, and a skirt suit. That’s who I wanted to be. She was a lawyer, so I decided to become one too. I didn’t really understand what it entailed. For me, it was actually way too much of a rigid environment. I’m way too much of a free spirit and have a creative mind. 

I can see that. Talking about your creative mind, where did you start with building the Nordic Knots aesthetic?

Liza: When it comes to aesthetics, it’s so personal. You need to believe in your style. Sometimes it takes a while to really understand your aesthetic, but once you get to trust it completely, you’re safe. You need to feel comfortable and know, ‘This is what I like and this is what I’m creating. And I believe if I stay true to myself, others will love it too.’ 

With aesthetics, you know you’re still looking for it but at one point it just is what it is and you don’t even think about it anymore.

Liza: Right. When you’re prepping for the shoots, it’s such a curatorial process all the time. Like no, yes, yes, no. And then you build the world. For me the aesthetic of Nordic Knots can’t be something that’s done. It needs to be a constant process and it should never be over, ever. It’s one step up all the time and can be refined and evolved.

Developing your own aesthetic allows you to find different iterations of what that aesthetic means. You don’t have to play it as safe as you perhaps did in the beginning.

Liza: You also need to not be afraid of  removing [something] from the collection. I’m really harsh in that sense. Felix is someone who’s looking at numbers. He’ll say, ‘It’s still selling pretty well.’ But it’s like no. It’s not us anymore. Let’s move on. That’s what makes our style genuine. It’s funny, we are known for our shoots. Specifically the inspiring homes [we shoot at] and the special locations we find. Very often we see that we shoot in a location, and you have several brands following. In the same location. We’re like come on guys! 

You run Nordic Knots with your husband and brother-in-law. Does it come easy to you to mix business and family?

Liza: With Nordic Knots it’s pretty straight forward between the three of us, because we possess very different qualities and have experience in such different areas. We live and breathe what we do. That’s extremely important. And you need to have respect for one another. I love that [Fabian and I] have the same taste. I respect him because I know what he’s talking about and he’s great at what he does. It’s easy to evolve and develop ideas from there and to create a product that we believe in together. With Felix too, he does everything that I hate. It’s all about being structured and with the finances. Just looking at an excel sheet makes me go crazy. 

I think there’s some sort of diagnosis I haven’t gotten yet. But I’m sure there’s one because I simply can’t do it.

Let’s zoom out. What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in the interior space? And what changes do you think we’ll see in the future?

Liza: Oh god.

Big question.

Liza: Looking at what happened the past two years with the pandemic, the home has become such a precious space. It’s your most intimate world. Everyone is getting even better at curating what they want to include in that world. In terms of the future.. I’m from the antiques world so I think the vintage part of things is going to get bigger and more interesting. You see a lot of younger dealers popping up. When I started out in the US, I was a young woman in the world of tweed suits and older men. We started shooting our antiques on this raw, chalky background in our studio in the south. We now see more people shooting antiques in a clean space to modernize it. That might be a trend that’s going to develop even more. 1stDibs played a big part in modernizing the whole vintage part of the [interior design] business. And Instagram has given us accessibility, to be able to shop online or shop at auctions. 

Definitely. Instagram has also been a powerful spreader of knowledge. I think five years ago no one would’ve known who Vincent van Duysen was, or was able to recognize a Pierre Jeanneret chair. Suddenly there’s so much democratization of the knowledge around design.

Liza: I love that you have access to all of these creative worlds. That’s something that we hope we have created with Nordic Knots. We want to inspire people to have a beautiful home. With what we’re building, and with the price bracket that we’re in, that it can be more accessible to people. To get something that is great quality and beautifully designed, to build the rest of the home from.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

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