Istanbul Carpet Week

Istanbul Carpet Week

We source some of our exclusive designs from Istanbul and make regular trips to get our hands on the best vintage overdyed rugs and contemporary creations. For the second year, we were flown to the city for Istanbul Carpet Week, where we got the chance to share experiences with peers from across the world.

Istanbul really is an incredible and inspiring city and one we've visited often during our hunts for the world's best hand-made rugs; it's one of our favourite places to source our Vintage Overdyed collection and is regarded across the world as an epicentre for rug craft. We were delighted to be asked to take part in Istanbul Carpet Week, an event that brings together makers, suppliers and influencers from the world of rugs.

We got involved in some very interesting conversations with our colleagues from the UK, America, Canada, Italy and Turkey among others, but we were most enlightened by a narrative that focused on the time taken to craft hand-made rugs, the anti-thesis to today's insatiable hunger for instant solutions. A theme central to Carpet Week, the intrinsic slowness of rug craft is something that we should never lose and we are proud to be part of an industry that cherishes tradition while proving it can achieve beautiful contemporary design.

The week also highlighted the immense impact that weavers have on the finished rug. Their placement of each knot and colour is an interpretation of the original design; their skill found in in locating the right place, colour and the correct speed and length. It takes craft, technique and passion to do a weaver's work and we hope this is something that comes across in our collections. Simply, a hand-made rug is an expression of influence from the weavers that make it, sometimes up to a dozen in number.

Needless to say, we've come back from Istanbul Carpet Week and with the determination to make sure that we keep providing homes with beautiful hand-crafted rugs that celebrate the best in modern design, bringing colour and pattern in a way that's uniquely FLOOR_STORY.