You know you’ve been an interiors editor too long when even the most innocuous things start to resemble home decor. In painted street crossings, I see sleek floating shelves. In clothing hangers? A triangular-backed postmodern chair. So when I spotted the aerial shots of the Glastonbury Festival near Somerset, I didn’t see tents. I saw patterns. The best rug patterns.
To accommodate over 200,000 festival-goers, Glastonbury uses a color-coded tent system that denotes size, cost (some run up to £28,999), and location, forming an impressively psychedelic infrastructure of colorful canopies. The way each zigzag fits neatly into the next — both hypnotic and hyper-organized — is a Virgo placement’s fever dream.
This sort of setup is particularly appealing to me — not because color or pattern are my usual style (they’re not), but because the type-A-friendly organization of it all speaks directly to my soul.
Something about those rainbow-dipped grids had me craving a rug that’s busier, brighter, and bolder than I’m used to — a pattern that expands, but is scaled just enough to live underfoot.
So I can look down and feel that same buzz of aerial awe from my 5’5” vantage point (5’10” in Miu Miu platform mules) instead of through a pixelated drone shot on my screen.
Below, I've found where to buy rugs inspired by the best views of the festival — alive with color, geometry, and the kind of kaleidoscopic beauty that makes you wonder why you ever went monochrome.
They say the best design ideas come from unlikely places. To that, I respond: pattern, please.
Berber rugs tend to lean colorful and pattern-heavy, so naturally they were my first stop on the hunt for rainbow. This one is an interpretation — the real deal is handmade and priced accordingly — but it channels that rich, varied style remarkably well.
Not sold on neon? This wool rug, a collaboration between rug brand LAYERED and interior designer Alice Crawley, offers a more grounded take. Inspired by Anglo-Asian design, it’s got a bamboo border I’m obsessed with — a nod to the outdoor accomodations.
No shortage of color here: this Habitat gem is as trippy as they come. With a 4.6-star rating, a washable rug design, and a suspiciously low price tag, I have to say I thought I was hallucinating. But it’s real — thank goodness — so feel free to stomp on it in your muddy festival wellies, à la Kate Moss.
Glastonbury Festival or Soho House Rome? Trick question — this hand-tufted Ropley rug is giving a bit of both. The palette may be more muted, but the energy is a match. And paradoxically, the more dynamic the rug, the more grounding it becomes. Use this one as a living room rug idea to tie together an otherwise unruly space. So crazy, it works.
Lost? Not exactly a bad thing when the color pathways look like this. A maze of colorblocked stripes gives this piece a contemporary, art-forward edge — dare I say, a little Phoebe Philo circa 2013. Pair it with something glossy and bright (a lacquered red side table, perhaps?) to punch it up to festival energy.
Sophie Robinson’s psychedelic rug may not be geometric, but the zesty palette, British garden nods, and freeform whimsy feel Glastonbury in spirit. It’s loud, it’s joyful, and with solid greens or a few woven accents, it turns any space into a color-fueled fantasy.
And is that a cowboy hat, I spy? Of course, the most fashionable festival should tap into one of the biggest trends right now, "Cowboy cool."
