Edward Fields

Edward Fields, founder of Edward Fields Carpet Makers, has become synonymous with bespoke, handcrafted American design carpets.

In 1935 at the age of 23, Edward Fields married his sweetheart, Eleanor. The couple spent their honeymoon setting up a modest showroom in Manhattan with the goal of becoming a luxury custom house. Fields developed a tufting tool in the mid-1930s – the Magic Needle – which would go on to define the company’s signature hand-tufting texture and forever change carpet production.

• Born: 1912
• Died: 1979
• Hometown: New York, NY

Edward Fields’ rugs were readily adopted into the homes of the prominent and wealthy. During the Administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mr. Fields wove and donated the first custom carpet expressly made in modern times for the White House. He also furnished custom carpeting for the Executive Mansion during the John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon Administrations. He designed a special carpet for President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Air Force One plane.

Edward Fields’ Area Rug

Edward Fields invented the term ‘area rug’ and produced these pieces, which he called ‘art for the floor’, both in-house and through collaborations with the best designers and artists of mid-century America, including George Nakashima, Raymond Loewy, Mies Van der Rohe, Phillip Johnson, Van Day Truex and Marion Dorn.

In 2005, Edward Fields Carpet Makers joined the House of Tai Ping. Continuing the brand’s legacy and modernist aesthetic, Edward Fields has gone on to collaborate with current design giants like The Alpha Workshops, Fernando Mastrangelo and Bec Brittain.

Today, the Edward Fields design archive provides inspiration for homes, yachts, private jets and high-end corporate and hospitality settings the world over.