Cream Round Authentic-Pattern Loom-Woven Tencel® Rug, Zara Series

Oushak has been weaving rugs for six centuries, and the Zara series is what its looms make now: a round rug in cream, with cypress-tree motifs drawn in the authentic Anatolian manner, worked in Tencel® over a cotton foundation. It is made at three widths across — 3'11", 5'3" and 6'7", or 120, 160 and 200 cm.

Cream is the hardest neutral to get right in a rug, because it either goes yellow or goes cold. This one sits warm, and the cypress motifs are drawn in a slightly deeper tone rather than a contrasting color, so the pattern is legible without being the first thing you notice. Round and pale, it does the opposite job of a dark rectangle: it makes a small room read larger and gives a large one a soft middle.

Every Zara rug is finished by hand after it leaves the loom, fringe by fringe, and the work is largely carried out by women in the Oushak district. Tencel® over cotton gives a soft surface and long wear, with no wool anywhere in the rug. This is the affordable route to the look of a hand-woven piece, and the house says plainly that the two are not the same thing.

• Loom-woven on the special looms at Oushak, Türkiye.
• Tencel® pile over a cotton foundation; wool-free.
• Cypress-tree motifs in the authentic Anatolian manner, on a cream ground.
• Round, at 120, 160 and 200 cm across.
• Hand-knotted fringes, worked individually.
• Professional washing, which a pale rug will need sooner than a dark one.

A pale rug is a commitment, and this is the shape that makes the commitment look considered rather than nervous.