Beautiful Designer Area Rugs from IDS 2017

Area rugs play an important role in home decor, not just as a floor covering but also as a focal point for the room. They not add color, texture or pattern to a design scheme, and anchor a room. The right rug in the right size pulls together all the other elements and can make a spectacular statement. Homedit saw dazzling examples of statement rugs at IDS 2017 in Toronto — some that you can even customize!

We’ve been fans of Jan Kath for a while now, particularly for his design innovations mixing bold colors and abstract designs with more traditional rug geometries. This one is from the Erased Heritage Collection, which honors the traditional oriental rug. “Over the centuries, different areas have developed different signature features and styles. With the Erases Heritage Collection, we are helping to make sure that  these ideas survive into the  modern age,” says Kath on his website.

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Bright hues like fiery orange, deep pink and vibrant aqua are a modern contrast to traditional pattern colors.

Most interestingly, instead of leaving weavers to read the instructions from a drawing, loom masters sing the commands to them.  They read the instructions out loud, translate them into a chant, and then sing the knotting instructions. This is a fantastically creative way of working that results in equally stunning large area rugs.

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Even in more muted tones, Kath’s abstract designs are visually engrossing.

This year, Elte launched its collection of vintage Moroccan rugs, which includes a range of colors that might seem unexpected to some shoppers.  The vibrant purples and deep indigo blues tones are not necessarily associated with Moroccan rugs, but Elte spend the better part of a year hunting down and sourcing high quality, unique vintage rugs in these great colors, along with a range of more traditional tones.  The result is a line of warm, inviting, and beautiful vintage rugs for any living space.

These rugs were hand knotted and sheared to an extra-long pile, embellished with knotted, tasseled fringes. While they are now special pieces for contemporary homes, they were created as utilitarian rugs meant to help warm nomadic tribes in cold temperatures.

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The colors in this vintage collection are bright and unexpected.
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Beautiful and textural, they are stunning displayed as art.
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Plush weaving and also distinguishes Elte’s Moroccan rug collection.

For those who can’t find exactly what they want, custom rugs are always an option and Amala Carpets offers customers more than just color and pattern choice.  Their innovative designs are the product of five generations of experience in artisan rug-making. Founded by Shan Shrestha, in cooperation with natural dye expert Ganchen Shrestha, Amala works to improve the lives of their artisans as well as their customers.

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The Zee Silk Collection is fine, luxurious silk.

If you want to go for the custom option, you can help create you own unique handmade carpet. Customers can choose what they want at virtually every step of the creative and production processes. Start by choosing a size, shape and design — one of their designs or one of your own.

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Amala walks you through the steps of the creation process for you to choose your options.

From there, several options exist for adding other materials to the basic Himalayan sheep wool rug or choosing 100 percent silk instead. A combination of silk and wool is popular, as is adding nettle fibers. Amala also offers Zee Silk, which is their hand-reeled pure, organic silk from Thailand.

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Size, shape, fiber and colors can all be customized.
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Fiber content and mixture is up to you.

The company offers a full palette of vegetable dyed fibers – red madder, indigo, saffron, tea, walnut and other colors. Of you have a design scheme in mind, they will help choose the right colors for your design.

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All the colors are achieved with vegetable-based dyes.
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Various levels of price and luxury are available with each design.

Once the size, shape and colors are chosen, you can opt for a variety of weaves, from a budget friendly new technique to the museum-quality Vaara, which is perfect for intricate designs that need higher definition. The Core Collection is a new budget-friendly luxury rug made hand-carded Himalayan sheep wool. New hand-weaving technique theses mean the rugs can be completed and delivered in 4-6 weeks.

Amala clearly defines the time frame required for the meticulous creation of each style. The more intricate styles and finer fibers require more time for production. No matter how long it takes, these types of statement area rugs are worth the wait.

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The more silk, the longer the production time due to the finer fibers.

Architect-turned-textile-designer Jürgen Dahlmanns started collecting rugs as a hobby before launching Rug Star in 2002. The Dahlmanns has designed more than 10,000 rugs, from modern to traditional. Aside from unusual rugs, he has two types, Persian, which us more expensive thanks to hits higher silk content and  and Tibetan, which have a denser weave. The Berlin-based company creates the designs and produces them in Nepal.

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One of Rug Star’s more traditional designs.