In the last twenty five years, it has become possible to revive an ancient industry in Turkey, with the rise of Western enthusiasm for antique carpets and kilims. Nonetheless it has been necessary to learn, and reinvent where necessary, those conditions essential to the process of making a work of art, to start again "from sheep to shop"!
In the mountain villages of Anatolia we found families willing to relearn the necessary skills. We had to research how to make the traditional vegetable dyes again. Looms had to be found or made for the women to work on. The right wools had to be located, bargaining for the so-called "winter cut" which gives the longest strands of wool. We had to wash, clean, dry, card, spin the wools ourselves to take to the villages where the weavers lived.
We paid fairly and supported the villagers’ efforts to redevelop economically, and helped them where possible - with hot water, street lighting in one case, training midwives, organising medical treatment, and supported agricultural training programmes, advances for a tractor
or farming implements. The Turkish Government is now supporting us
for obvious reasons.
Today we work with carefully chosen families, scattered in the villages around Konya. Our innovation has been to centralise the whole activity, not under one roof but under one administration. Asad supervises quality and fidelity to the client’s brief, from the buying of wool, to cleaning and washing it , to the hand-spinning , and dyeing in our own copper tubs, to the cartoon drawings, the setting up of individual looms, the critical weaving stage, and the finishing of each carpet or kilim in our own workshops.
Our current commissioned production of traditional carpets and kilims include the great pieces of the sixteenth and seventeenth century Ottoman court workshop design.
We work with Anatolian and Caucasian village, nomadic, and tribal rugs of the past. In addition we work with the classical Persian, Indian and Middle-Eastern workshop designs, as well as with Spanish, French and English historical sources.
We are also commissioned by the best international contemporary designers all over the world to make carpets and kilims to any size, design and.colour scheme.
Ninety five percent – and rising - of our production is made to measure, and we hold no stock. We choose to be selective, small, and uncompromising.
Adam Munthe
