Category Archives: Designer’s notes

Rug design, interior design, decorating ideas, what’s new, travelog & anecdotes

How Technology Has Changed the Handmade Oriental Rug Industry
Part Two – How Rugs Get to Market

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Advances in technology have dramatically impacted the way handmade rugs are brought to the market. Not only have printed catalogs been replaced by cds or online catalogs, many buyers are able to limit their trade show travel time and expense and simply place orders from established manufacturers from the comfort of their office chair, pretty much the same way consumers purchase items online.

Nejad Rugs had two beautiful wholesale trade showrooms in Atlanta, Georgia and High Point, North Carolina. These huge multi building complexes housed thousands of big and small manufacturers and importers. Twice a year in each location the trade markets are held and retailers from around the country and world attend. Before the internet took hold, it was like watching an empty city fill up for five days and empty in one. Sometimes I would go to our High Point Showroom off market and it was like the proverbial ghost town, half expecting to see tumble weeds blowing down the main streets. Ten show days a year really wasn’t the best use of very costly real estate. Our High Point, NC showroom was my favorite trade location because furniture design is another passion of mine, and High Point was the furniture capital of the world. 
Whenever I could find time to steal away I would visit my friends at the
furniture and accessory showrooms. Baker, Henderdon, Hinkle Harris, Kindel, Karges, Stickley, Matland Smith and my favorite Italian Furniture Maker, Giemme Francesco Molon. My designs worked so well with Giemme Francesco Molon they used my rugs for their gorgeous catalog as seen on their website. 

It was fantastic to walk the furniture galleries of some of the most talented
interior designers and imagine the next rug collections to coordinate with the latest furniture and fabric trends. Many of my rug designs were conceived during these trade shows. In High Point, we had taken over the Shaw Rugs space in the IHFC building. We had really great neighbors including Oriental Weavers, Momeni, Bokara Rug, Couistan, Jaunty, and Mohawk. It was always a pleasure seeing these tremendously talented and hard working people during the shows. Unfortunately Oriental Rug retail stores have a reputation for unprofessional, super aggressive
salespeople more interested in ripping apart their competitors than talking about their own business, making the buying experience confusing, stressful and unpleasant for customers. This is something you will never find at our Doylestown, Bucks County rug gallery and was also the complete opposite with the Oriental Rug Importers during the trade shows. Although we were all competitors, the level of mutual respect and cooperation was tremendous. If one importer didn’t have what a buyer was looking for, they would often send them to another importer who did. I am very fortunate to have made lifelong friends with many of these people and wish each of them continued success.

Our Atlanta trade showroom was another beautiful space with again many of the leading rug importers as neighbors including Safavieh, Feizy Rugs, Home Fries, Jerry Aziz, Lofty and Sons, Megerian, Moosavi Rugs, Peel, Renaissance, Shalom Brothers and directly across the hallway Kalaty. Because Atlanta also had an accessory trade show, I was able to see the latest designs in from home fashion icons such as Ralph Lauren and Barbara Berry to name two.

But technology made our trade showrooms redundant. More and more of our buyers stopped attending these quarterly shows and started ordering from our digital catalogs. This meant we didn’t have to wait three months to see our buyers to show them our new Nejad Rugs’ designs. We could send emails and JPEGS the moment a new design was ready to be introduced – all from of my Bucks County design studio Not only did this save everyone a tremendous amount of money previously spent on
expensive air travel and hotels, buyers could spend more time on product selection and less time running from showroom to showroom.

For buyers who prefer to see our rugs in person, we will make travel arrangements for them to come to Philadelphia and visit our warehouses in Doylestown Township, Pa. and Quakertown, Pa. I have found that this makes for a much more personalized and relaxing buying experience for our Nejad Rugs dealers. Although, I still think trade shows play an important role in the market place, they are not the necessity they once were before the age of the Internet. We still may decide to open another
trade showroom at some time in the future but for now, the internet is working for our wholesale business just fine.

Happy Rug Shopping!

How Technology Has Changed the Handmade Oriental Rug Industry
Part One – The Design Process

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Last week I lived up to my New Year’s resolution and began a long
delayed project of scanning decades’ worth of oriental rug import
and design documents that completely fill one large room of file
cabinets. My goal was to clear up space and have easier and more
permanent access to these materials. What I got was a walk down
memory lane and a reminder of how technology has dramatically
changed the way handmade oriental rugs get to market.

Imagine this. I wake up one morning with wonderful design ideas
for a new Oriental Rug collection. After several weeks of drawing
designs and painstakingly rendering them in color, I airmail
these designs to my overseas weavers to have 3’ X 5’ corner
samples made. (If you have visited my Doylestown, Pennsylvania
showroom you would have undoubtedly seen many of these lying around.)
After waiting usually three months, a package arrives with my rug
corner samples. Opening these packages is always exciting yet nerve
wrecking because the rug samples could be better than I had imagined
or a disaster. I am happy to say I have had many more positive than
negative package opening experiences. Even when a rug sample does
turn out well, I still repeat the sample making process two to six
more times to fine tune colors and pattern placement. A full scale
rug usually in a 6’ x 9’ size is woven and shipped to me for evaluation.
Only after my final approval does a rug design go into production,
sometimes taking over twelve months before receiving the rugs to sell
at market.

Fast forward a bit…THE FAX MACHINE is invented. This was big, I mean
really big. Now I could cut my rug design charts into carefully numbered
8×11 sheets and fax these rug maps overseas with about ten pages of color
note diagrams. Because my weavers and I work with the same sets of yarn
colors, we could change rug shades easily. Sample correction drawings
could also be faxed. The fax machine knocked off about ten weeks from
the design process.

Fast forward again, and the INTERNET becomes available to the public. 
Now, all of my rug designs are scanned in color and emailed in a matter
of seconds.  My hand drawn corner designs are easily copied and pasted
to scale. (If my rug design is asymmetrical, I still hand draw the entire
design.) Woven sample corners are photographed and emailed back to me. 
Needed sample corrections are instantaniously transmitted and entire
finished rugs are photographed overseas in close up detail for my approval.
What used to take sometimes over a year is done now in a matter of a
few months. Of course the actual hand weaving of the rugs still takes
the same amount of time it did centuries ago… and that is just fine by me.

Happy Rug Shopping!

Oriental Rugs & The Arts and Crafts Movement

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The Arts and Crafts movement was one of the most important developments in the world of design, beginning in England in the 1860’s and quickly spreading to Europe and the United States.  The idea is both beautiful and universally true.  All human beings have the need for artistic expression, and when given the opportunity and training, magnificent art can be created by almost anyone.  William Morris, a Renaissance man if there ever was one, is considered the father of the movement
and is one of my all time favorite historical figures.

So when I began to work on my new Arts and Crafts rug designs, I traveled to England’s Coltwalds region to research the rugs produced by William Morris and Company at the turn of the twentieth century. Designated an “Area of Outstanding Beauty” in 1966, I am sure that this region greatly influenced the natural aspects of color and design elements used in Morris’ rugs, wallpapers and fabrics.  During my stay, I was fortunate enough to tour his beautiful home and studio and took back to Bucks County a suitcase stuffed with sketch books full of design ideas.

The theme of Arts & Craft rugs is one of larger stylized natural elements such as leaves, flowers and vines in usually more loose or rustic weaves that offer a rich texture often with intended abrash or subtle color variations.  One of my professors once said that there really isn’t anything new in design, just a reworking of existing ideas. I found this to be true even with the William Morris rug designs. Many of the individual design
elements are very similar to those found in old Persian Sultanabad and Oushak rugs and the acanthus leaves with vine movements quite often look like those found in antique Flemish tapestries and Savonnerie eighteenth century carpets. It was his combination of these intrinsically beautiful elements, scale of design and color
combinations that made this a fresh new style.

Arts and Craft style rugs are most frequently showcased in interior design magazines such as Architectural Digest and Veranda in rooms decorated with Stickley or Mission style furniture – simplistic without ornamentation. I myself have designed rooms for clients with Arts and Craft rugs that were Mid-Western rustic and even modern décor.
Whatever your style, I encourage you to explore these wonderfully decorative rugs for your own home of office.

Happy Rug Shopping!

Choose Your Oriental Rug First

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When clients are redecorating, I always advise them to choose their oriental rug before making any decisions about fabrics, wall coverings and paint. The reasoning is very simple. When purchasing an oriental rug, you have many more limitations than the other design elements that will go into the room.

You will need to determine:

  • The function of the room & high or low traffic
  • The room’s light quality
  • Do you want a new or antique rug
  • What are the minimum and maximum length and width sizes that will work
  • Do you want a rug with a center medallion or an all over design (this may depend  if your room has any off center architectural components such as a fireplace or bank of windows)
  • What style of design do you prefer (formal or casual, geometric or floral, modern or traditional etc.)
  • What is your overall color palette
  • Do you want your rug to be a strong focal point or more understated statement
  • What is your budget

It sounds like a lot of information but it really isn’t.  Most people can answer all of the above questions in a matter of minutes, however by taking the time to do so, you will be more focused and much more likely to purchase a rug with which you will be happy.

And Now Comes the Big Payoff.  Once you have purchased your rug, all other decorating decisions become much easier. Your rug acts as your generator pointing you in the direction of the most complementary colors, designs, and textures. There are literally thousands of fabrics, wallpapers, and paints from which to choose and your rug will help you make the best decisions. One of my favorite design activities is to gather a selection of fabrics and wall covering samples and place them on the rug. The colors and design of the rug will help you easily eliminate any samples that are off hue or too busy.  If your selection of samples was not quite right, you will now know in which direction to go for new samples.

Over the years I have worked with clients who purchased their fabrics or wall coverings and then went shopping for a rug. Scalamandre, Schumacher, Brunschwig & Fils, Old World Weavers, Stroheim & Romann and  Kravet are my favorite designer fabric and wallpaper companies. However, many of their fabrics have combinations of colors that make coordinating an oriental rug very difficult if not impossible. 
Unfortunately many clients realize this after the fact. 

Finally, another reason to choose your oriental rug first is because you can take the rug with you. I always recommend my clients to try to allocate the greater part of their decorating budget to the items that go with you when you move. Expensive window treatments and wall coverings can be wonderful, but they and the money you spent on them stay with the house however rugs, furniture and art go with you. 

Happy Oriental Rug Shopping!

Interior Decorating With Rugs as Wall Art

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Most of us are familiar with the idea of hanging pictorial or landscape tapestries on walls, but more and more interior designers are turning to oriental and transitional rugs as an option to add color, design and texture to both large and small wall areas.

Rugs hung as wall art can make graphic bold statements or subtle yet interesting artistic accents to many areas in the home or office. They can add warmth and dimension to large expanses of bland wall space or make a small area both charming and complete.

Antique Rugs are a favorite of mine to hand as wall art. Not only are the colors mellowed with time, the texture of antique rugs adds a rich quality to the room’s overall ambiance. Some antique rugs are no longer suitable for floor traffic and hanging them makes wonderful use of decorative handmade textiles.

Silk Rugs are another excellent choice to hang in place of paintings. The play of light on the surface of a silk rug can be delightfully captivating and a silk rug will seem to endlessly change with differences in the amount of sunlight. I have a particularly special small antique Turkish Silk Hereke rug hung in the Doylestown Showroom. The foundation was woven with gold metal threads giving the rug an amazing brilliant sheen. I am often asked which rugs are my favorites and this one is definitely at the top of my list.

Kilims and Dhurries are another category of rug I often recommend for hanging. The light flat woven construction of this type of rug allows for larger sizes to be easily hung. I especially like using kilims on stone wall surfaces which can look stark without a focal point. Most of these rugs are woven in strong geometric designs that work very well with modern, arts and crafts and southwestern decorating styles.

Pile Rugs have been gaining in popularity with top interior designers and decorators to hang as wall art. Again, it is the fresh option of something other than the expected work of art. Usually designers will carefully select directional rugs or symmetrical rugs that complement existing art work and floor rugs. I had one client commission me to tent a bedroom in fabric then hang pile rugs on the walls for added interest. To this day it still is one of my all time favorite rooms.

Modern Rugs are wonderful options to add the wow factor to any contemporary space. It was a visit to The Philadelphia Art Museum and the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Bucks County that inspired me to create my Casual Contemporary and Modern Living rug collections. I even have one rug that is homage to the fabulous American modern painter Jackson Pollock. If you visit the website www.nejad.com it shouldn’t take you long to find which one.

How to hang a rug is a very important consideration and usually best left to an Oriental Rug expert and professional installer. The size, weight, construction and age of the rug are factors to consider in addition to the surface and construction of the wall where the rug will be hung. There are a variety of decorative rods and clips that can be used or discrete
hanging pockets can be hand sewn to the back or a rug. For larger heavier rugs, I have used framing on the backside of the rugs to ensure even weight distribution.

Whatever your design style, I am sure you will find using rugs as wall art another beautiful option to decorate your home and bring many years of enjoyment to you and your family.

The Beauty of Bucks County – An Inspiration of Color

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One of the great loves of my life has been travel and I have had the extraordinary opportunity of visiting some of the most beautiful places in the world.  Having said this, there is always one place I love to be during the fall season and that’s the magnificent countryside of Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

The gorgeous colors of amber, earthy green, cranberry, rust and blazing red create a kaleidoscope dance, enhanced and intensified by the most exquisite golden sun light.  These are the colors you will often find in my rug designs.  Warm, rich, soul embracing hues that transform a room into a life enhancing environment.

These precious next weeks I am purposely setting aside the afternoon hours to steal away from my studio to my favorite scenic spots in Lahaska, New Hope, Solebury, Yardley, Tinicum and Upper Makefield.  So if you happen to see a woman alongside the road with hundreds of yarn color samples and too many to count sketch pads, you’ll know it is me happily dreaming up the next collection of Nejad oriental rug designs and with no other place I’d rather be.

Happy Fall Everyone!

The Art of Communicating

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From my oriental rug design studio in Bucks County, PA to an open courtyard in Kabul, Afghanistan I found myself four years ago drawing rug motifs on the back of hotel advertisements to visually describe what I couldn’t convey verbally to my Farsi speaking, rug weaving, new friend. As many artists know, words were not needed between us because art was our form of communication…that, and a few nods and smiles to confirm that we understood each other.

It always amazes me that no matter where I am, from a rural Chinese province where people still find blond hair a novelty to a small remote workshop in wonderfully exotic India, the unfamiliarity of the place and culture quickly fade away whenever I work with a fellow artisan. I found this to be no less true in Afghanistan even with the constant stream of fully armed NATO soldiers passing us by.

On this somber tenth anniversary of September 11nth, I pulled these old sketches out of my overstuffed file cabinet and looked at the beautiful drawings we made if only to remind myself that most people are good and kind and that we can find common ground in what makes us human.