fashion underfoot; Victoria Magniant's custom-made rugs adorn the floors of Paris's chicest apartments.(Brief Article)(Interview)

Byline: Elisabeth Franck-dumas

With self-deprecating charm, the 26-year-old carpet designer Victoria Magniant describes her collections for her family's Paris-based rug company, Casa Lopez, as "lacking coherence." Spare yet lush, her designs do indeed range from carpets that look like blurred photographic negatives of classic eighteenth-century floor coverings to hypercolorful prints of Tibetan inspiration. But they all share a potent mix of edgy sensibility and traditional craftsmanship that have attracted clients as diverse as photographers Bettina Rheims and Inez van Lamsweerde and elegant French families like the Roederers. "I've made custom designs inspired by a client's tattoos or by the view from their window onto a church," Magniant says with a laugh. "But the fabric dictates most of what I do-it's the starting ...