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CARPETS
53
June15
QUESTIONS
5
F
ascinatedby theexotic rugs shimmering from
the walls and piled up high on the floors of
Singapore’s expansive carpet showrooms,
but hesitant to go in? Unless you’re one of
the tiny few for whom cost is no object, these places
– like high-end fashion designer stores – can be
intimidating for the uninitiated, and so can the prices.
And then, while strolling through IKEA (mostly
to stock up on the world’s best tea-lights and
paper napkins before succumbing to a $1 chicken
hotdog) you spot an amazing selection of jolly
good-looking rugs from a ridiculously low $129.
When it comes to floor-coverings, muses
Verne
Maree
, there’s evidently more than meets the eye
– so she asked three of our favourite carpet guys
five key carpet questions.
CARPET HISTORY 101
• Carpets date back to the earliest times:
forms of woven floor-covering were
already in use as far back as 7,000 BC,
the Neolithic Age.
• It’s thought that nomadic populations
started producing thickly knotted carpets
to insulate their dwellings from extreme
climatic conditions, instead of having to
kill valuable animals for their hides.
• Woven on vertical looms, they were
easily dismantled and packed up.
As populations settled down in one
place, horizontal looms became the
norm, carpets continuing to serve both
utilitarian and beautification purposes.
• Theoldest survivingexample is thePazyryk
Carpet: dating from the 5th century BC,
it was discovered by archaeologists,
preserved in the tomb of a Shiite chief in
the Pazyryk Valley in what is now Siberia.
• It wasn’t until the 18th century that
carpets were used to cover floors – in the
Western world, anyway. Generally, you’d
find them on walls or on tables.
PETER HEDGER of
Hedger’s Carpet
Gallery
in Dempsey points out that
ancient Persian techniques, designs
and colour palettes have been retained
though centuries of revolution and wars,
largely surviving modernisation, too.
“The Persian people realised early
on the importance of their ancestry
and their culture,” he adds. “So even
today, a Persian carpet is untouched
by current fashions or market trends
and is immediately identifiable with the
particular town where it was made, be it
Kum, Esfahan, Kashan, Tabreze or Nain,
for example. And they still use vegetable
dyes wherever possible, as opposed to
modern chrome dyes.”
Also, Persian carpets are made to
exacting standards from the natural fibres:
wool, silk and cotton; so they’re investment
pieces that should last for a hundred years
andmore. As they age, the irreproducible
patina they develop because of their
fading vegetable dyes adds value – and
that’s at least partly why older Persian
carpets are so sought-after, says Peter.
What is a Persian carpet?
A Persian carpet can come from
only one country, Iran. Don’t allow
anyone to confuse you with the
argument that the old Persian
Empire stretched from Turkey in the
west, including some parts of Egypt,
India, Pakistan and even southern
Russia. A carpet made outside
modern-day Iran might qualify as
Persian only if it were 600 or more
years old – and that’s highly unlikely!
WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT
PERSIAN CARPETS