MAGIC CARPETS
Artists take up rug design as permanence gives way to finishing as the next big thing
Though rug design and manufacturing is technically complex, involving decisions on knot count and materials, there are fewer factors people need to consider when buying one, says Ken Reid, senior marketing and merchandising manager for Jordans Rugs Ltd. in B.C.
“Size, colour, design and cost are the four big ones,” says Reid. “When you marry those four together and find something that works, then it’s as good as it gets.”
Lighting is another important element in getting it right, he says.
“Looking at it in our showrooms, which we try to light as best we can, it won’t be the same lighting as you have in your home,” he says.
“So the best thing to do is take a couple (of rugs), and try them and then figure it out from there. It’s a bit of a hit and miss, trial-and -error-type purchase.”
Having a clear idea about your budget and lifestyle also helps, says Reid.
For example, choosing a pure silk rug that, though durable, requires professional cleaning, is probably not the best idea if you have young kids or pets — wool is easier to care for.
“You can buy a rug that costs $5,000 or $10,000, or even $20,000 for that matter, that will last a lifetime,” he says. “Or you can buy machine-made rugs that are now becoming better and better, with more design effort put into those rugs, but you spend $50 to $1,000 and it will last you five to 10 years and then you move on.”
The rug industry, says Reid, was founded on the notion of people investing in permanence with the intention of passing on rugs to their family. Though this still happens to some degree with high-end Persian rugs, it has become less common.
“As we all know from the British India rugs that our grandmothers, and some of our parents had, we don’t want those rugs,” says Reid. “We don’t want them passed down, and that’s probably true of just about everything out there these days. Some people fall in love with their rugs. I’m certainly one of them and I’d love for my kids to fall in love with them as well, but everyone has their own taste so you never know.”
Over the past three to four years, finishing has become the big thing in rug design, says Reid. “They’re shearing rugs down to almost nothing,” he says. “Extremely thin
rugs are extremely trendy at the moment. Not everyone in Canada buys into it as much as they do in Europe and the U.S. A lot of rugs out of Turkey and Iran that are somewhat unsellable — not great quality weaving-wise — they’re taking those rugs, shearing them down and over-dyeing them, putting them in purples and pinks and more subtle dove greys and denim blues and they turn out to be spectacular rugs.”
Burritt Bros rug designer Ainsley Jones of Vancouver, encourages her clients to show her the room they are buying the rug for.
“I like to see either photos or fabrics in the space,” she says.
“Normally when someone brings in a fabric, I know our inventory so well I can kind of see if there’s something or if there’s a pattern in the computer that’s a rendering and hasn’t been made yet,” she says.
Jones also designs the rugs Burritt Bros produces in collaboration with artists like Vancouver’s Zoe Pawlak and Sid Dickens and recently Annabel Inganni from L.A.-based Wolfum.
Pawlak’s latest rug collaboration with Burritt Bros is based on the nude figures in her chalk drawings. “In this new line we played loosely with pattern, which I have never done before,” she says.