At this point, there are hardly enough hyphens to describe everything Colin King is capable of. An interior stylist who’s worked with chart-topping stars, major brands, and a plethora of publications (including AD’s January issue), King calls on his classical dance training to gracefully arrange spaces, creating a conversation through the careful curation and placement of otherwise inanimate design objects. Now, he’s adding yet another title to his lengthy résumé: artistic director-at-large of Beni Rugs.
King’s keen styling eye was what first attracted the attention of Beni Rugs cofounder Robert Wright, who slid into the stylist’s Instagram DMs in 2018 to enlist his expertise. Soon thereafter, King signed on to style the handwoven Moroccan rug brand’s first big shoot in Marrakech, an experience that he says “really broadened my perspective as far as what can be done creatively.”
In that moment, a fruitful ongoing partnership was born. King would go on to style another Beni shoot in Tangier, launch a colorful rug collection of his own, and design the brand’s Apartment showroom in New York. Now, King has put a label on the relationship with Beni by serving in his new official role.
“This whole process felt intuitive and quite smooth,” King tells AD PRO of the partnership. “I think our combined experience is a lot more interesting than a singular point of view, and they really gave me the freedom to dream big.”
In this new role, King will release three distinct collections for Beni over the course of the year, each of which aims to expand the visual language of the Moroccan rug while showcasing a reverence for the traditional techniques and materials that define the time-honored craft. Spoken Lines, which draws inspirations from Piero Portaluppi’s rationalist architecture as well as the patterns and colors of Milan’s entryways and foyers, will be his first.
Fitting for a line designed by a modern renaissance man, King’s first collection will be a true multimedia affair. In addition to working with women-led, London-based Studio Frith to create a film of the collection, Spoken Lines will debut at Salone del Mobile alongside the work of Moroccan textile artist Amine El Gotaibi.
