Red Vintage-Pattern Loom-Woven Wool Rug, Zade Series

Plum-brown border lines are what give the red its depth — without them the ground would be one loud color, and with them it has a floor and a ceiling. Red Vintage-Pattern Loom-Woven Wool Rug, Zade Series: wool, cotton and Tencel®, woven in Kütahya, its motifs at the center and corners faded nearly to the point of vanishing.

01A line from the archive

Several sizes are made. The pattern has been drawn as though it had already been walked on for decades, so the eye spends a moment hunting for where it begins and ends, and while it is doing that it notices the surface instead. The motifs carry a shine the ground does not have, which means the rug shows you a different thing from every chair in the room.

02Coming off the loom

Strong without being loud is a hard thing to get out of red, and the border is how it has been done here. Kütahya's mechanical looms tie the knots. Once a piece is off it, the rug travels to homes in the nearby villages and the fringes are finished there by hand before it comes back.

03What Wool does

Wool is what gives the pile its firm filled feel; cotton is in the foundation; Tencel® supplies the shine on the figures. It sheds and raises very little, which is a practical point about vacuuming and nothing more than that.

04Knot by knot, by hand

It should be washed by a specialist. Woven on Kütahya looms that tie the knots; finished by hand. Wool with Tencel® above; the foundation beneath is cotton. Faded vintage figures at the center and corners of a deep red ground. Plum-to-brown border lines that give the red its depth. Village households nearby knot every fringe once the weaving is done. Made in a range of sizes, from a sitting-room piece upward. Low shedding, easy to vacuum, professional wash for anything more. Put it in a room of oak and older furniture and it looks settled; put it in a white one and it becomes the only decision anybody comments on.