Blue Scandinavian-Pattern Loom-Woven Tencel® Rug, Zara Series

What kept us on this one is the blue: pale and deep at the same time, pastel in the light parts and properly navy in the dark ones, which is hard to describe and easy to recognize. A Scandinavian-pattern Zara rug in Tencel® over cotton, made on the Oushak looms in four sizes — 90 × 150, 130 × 190, 170 × 240 and 200 × 290 cm, which is 2'11" × 4'11" at the smallest and 6'7" × 9'6" at the largest. Scandinavian motifs — small, spare, geometric — scattered over a ground that shifts between those two blues.

01The origin of the pattern

The result reads nostalgic and contemporary at once, and it is the tonal range in the ground rather than the motifs that does it. The rug is quiet enough for a bedroom and graphic enough for a hallway, and in a room with pale wood floors the blue is the only strong color it needs. Zara rugs come off looms in Oushak, in workshops where the weaving tradition is older than the machinery, and the labor is largely women's.

02The mark of slow weaving

Every fringe is finished by hand once the rug comes off the frame, and that step, more than anything in the weave, is what stops these from looking like standard machine rugs. Tencel® in the pile over a cotton base gives the surface its softness and durability. There is no wool in the rug. Loom-woven in Oushak, Türkiye, largely by women weavers. Tencel® on a cotton foundation; contains no wool. Scandinavian geometric motifs over a ground that runs from pastel blue to navy. Fringes finished by hand once the weaving is done. Four sizes, from 90 × 150 cm through to 200 × 290 cm. Professional washing rather than spot-cleaning at home. Blue is the color people are most often wrong about in a photograph; this is one of the ones that is better in the room.