Black Patchwork Cowhide Rug

Nothing here is woven. This is cowhide, cut into panels and stitched into a rectangle — 195 × 220 cm (6'5" × 7'3"), close enough to square to sit centrally under a table. Black throughout, made in South America, and it is dry cleaning only.

Patchwork hide exists because a hide is an irregular shape and a room is not. Cutting the skin into regular panels and sewing them back together gives a usable rectangle and a surface with visible seams and slight variations in grain and sheen between one panel and the next — which is the point, and not a fault. Hair lies in a direction, so each panel catches light differently depending on how it was laid in, and a black patchwork reads as a grid of subtly different blacks rather than as one flat color.

A hide behaves nothing like a woven rug underfoot — heavier, unyielding, and it never sheds. It also cannot be wet-cleaned. Water lifts the seams and stiffens the skin, so this goes to a dry cleaner and nowhere near a washing machine or a steam device. Shake it out, brush along the direction of the hair, and keep it out of direct sunlight, which fades black hide faster than it fades wool.

How do you clean a cowhide rug?

Dry cleaning only. Shake it out and brush along the lie of the hair for routine care, and blot anything spilled at once rather than rubbing it in. Water is what damages a hide: it lifts the stitched seams and leaves the skin stiff, and neither of those is reversible.

• Cowhide, cut to panels and stitched into a patchwork rectangle.
• Made in South America, in black throughout.
• 195 × 220 cm (6'5" × 7'3") — very nearly square.
• Seams and grain variation between panels are visible by design.
• The hair lies in a direction, so panels catch light differently.
• Heavy underfoot, and it does not shed.
• Dry cleaning only; water lifts the seams permanently.
• A single piece.

Hide outlasts almost everything else on a floor, provided nobody ever tries to wash it.