The shag pile descends from the Anatolian tulu, a pile-heavy yatak rug woven for warmth on the floors of Central Anatolian winter rooms. The form crossed into mid-century interior design through Scandinavia and California in the 1960s, and the long-pile rug has been a fixture of the modern living room ever since.

The rug was made by hand across six to seven weeks by Two. The yarn was hand-spun, plant-dyed in small batches, and worked into the structure row by row. There is nothing in the construction that a machine touches, and the slight irregularities in the surface are the trace of the human hand at every step. The piece reads as cloth more than rug and ages by softening rather than by flattening.

The composition

Built on a red register. The field is held open enough that the eye moves across it rather than landing in any single place. The slight irregularities in dye saturation are not flaws; they are the signature of wool batched in small lots and dyed in copper vats by hand. Photographic accuracy was never the goal. The colour the rug carries in person is warmer, softer, and longer-lived than any image of it can suggest. The geometry is sized for the room rather than for the photograph; the rug rewards a close look as much as a standing one.

The piece in a room

At 5' x 7' the rug is the structural floor of a primary living area. Place a three-seater sofa above it with a low coffee table at the centre, and the geometry of the room is settled. The piece carries enough scale to be the principal colour decision in the space and asks the upholstery, the wall paint, and the lighting to take their cue from there.

Care

Daily care is minimal. Vacuum the surface weekly with the bar disengaged. Reverse the rug at six-month intervals so the two faces age in step. Spills are addressed with cool water on a soft cloth, blotting outward to inward. Periodic professional dry cleaning at three to four-year intervals keeps the structure clean and the dye honest.

Reference

• Medium: handmade synthetic yarn
• Dimensions: 5' x 7' (152 x 213 cm)
• Construction: hand-made on a vertical loom
• Hands: 2 makers, six to seven weeks
• Pile: medium pile, hand-spun yarn
• Origin: India

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