Oriental rug business steady as tastes shift

Bonafide Persian rugs haven’t been imported since the U.S. imposed its trade embargo on Iran in 1979, but they’ve managed to avoid the pitfalls of other heirloom goods, said David Martinous of Martinous Oriental Rugs.

U.S. importers and wholesalers still have a lot of nice semi-antique and antique Persian rugs, Martinous said, and South Asian producers are also making new rugs that look Persian.

“You’ve got an influx, over the last so many years, of all these machine-made rugs. Some of them have gotten so good that some people will buy them over a handmade oriental rug,” he said. “Some of them are being made in Egypt; some of them are being made right here in the United States. Some are being made in Turkey on these looms.”

Discerning collectors may want real Persian rugs, but Martinous said the market is more about following fashion trends, which he says is because of machine manufacturing.

“You look at my store now, all rugs and all these samples here come from India, Afghanistan, Peshawar, Pakistan, but they’re made in multiple sizes,” he said. “Persian rugs were made one-ofa-kind.”

Martinous said importers in the New York City area, the industry’s hub, are telling him that value is beginning to rise again, after a period of decline, as minimalism slides out of vogue and more good-condition rugs come onto the market.

It can be a buyer’s market if consumers know where to look, he said.

“I just did an appraisal for Roy Dudley,” Martinous said, referring to the Little Rock estate agent. “A former doc-

tor had about 15 rugs. I put the current market value on them, based on their condition. I doubt if he got 10% or 20% on the dollar of that. When you go to estate sales, you have a generation that doesn’t want china, silver, fine old furniture, rugs. The value goes down. People can really get bargains at estate sales, so that’s what’s happening today.

“They have all this inventory. The condition of these rugs is excellent. You’ve got people out there with money who want nice things. They want something like that, so they’re able to get a little bit more value out of their rugs,” he said. “Let’s say a 10-by-14foot heriz at one time, wholesale, was $6,000 or $7,000. The last few years, they’ve only been able to get $2,000 or $3,000 for it — but now it’s going back up.”

The Delaware-based Transparency Market Research company projected last May that the global rug market would reach $37.8 billion by the end of 2031, with an annual growth rate of 5.7% from 2023 to 2031. The report found that wool and naturalfiber rugs are gaining traction in living rooms and offices, that area rugs for open floor plans are seeing a consistent rise in demand and that consumers are increasingly turning to e-commerce for rugs, increasing market size and value.

Even so, Martinous said younger customers want more modern styles, which he sells and which make up a good part of his business, in addition to rug cleaning and repairs work he does.

Carl Matthews, head of the Interior Design Department at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said the period of decline he’s observed may be ending with the ascent of maximalist aesthetics — the “unabashed mixture of styles, patterns, colors, materials, lighting.”

“I think with more people intrigued by this maximalist idea, it may come back,” Matthews said. “With all design trends, it’s a cyclical, up-anddown thing. But even if you watch ‘Antiques Roadshow’ or something like that, they will talk about rugs that were once bringing in a lot more money than they have been recently.

“Rugs are always going to be needed, especially as homes have gone more towards hard-surface flooring than back 30 years ago when there was still wall-to-wall carpet everywhere,” he said. “With mostly hard-surface flooring, the importance of rugs to soften a space and arrange furniture is definitely stronger than ever, but generally, I think it’s been for more contemporary designs than for the historic, highly patterned designs. But there’s always going to be a market for traditional Persian, Chinese or any of the oriental rugs.”

Martinous sees a future for Martinous Oriental Rugs, where he sells “down to a certain quality” of natural and artificial fibers, like viscous or olefin. He said consumers shouldn’t be concerned about non-natural fibers in machine-made rugs, noting that industry giant Karastan makes rugs from recycled plastic bottles.

He and one competitor, David Hadidi of Hadidi Rug Gallery on Cantrell Road, have a relatively good lock on the handmade rug business in Central Arkansas, attracting customers from around the state.

“This is a specialized business,” Martinous said.