The Moroccan Urban Carpets love affair with carpets
Urban Carpets, Carpets creator
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Moroccan carpets are the height of fashion right now and because of their beauty, versatility, and compatability with almost any interior, they are appearing in beautiful homes, hotels and interior and design magazines the world over.
Moroccans and riad owners have always had a long standing love of carpets. Carpets are cherished items, which are meticulously cared for. They are investment pieces that ground rooms and provide them with the basis for the palette of their decor. A beautiful carpet is indeed the foundation of riad interior design, not to mention artwork for a floor. Everything works off their vibe. Accordingly, here they are considered one of the most important furnishing of all.
Moroccan carpets therefore don't just serve a practical function in riads, they ultimately enhance the living space.
Carpets and rugs vary greatly in design and colouring from region to region.
There are two distinct types of carpets in Morocco: urban Islamic carpets and rural tribal carpets.
Rabat is the historic centre of the Moroccan urban Islamic carpet making tradition and its pile weave carpets are referred to as Rabat, or R'bati carpets. They are formal in style, and much more sophisticated, with extremely diverse coloration. It is not uncommon for them to require months of painstaking work to complete.
Urban carpet making in Rabat can be traced back to the 18th century, and was greatly influenced and inspired by formal styles and techniques from neigbouring Mediterranean countries and the Middle East from where there was always a marked cultural exchange.
For Moroccans, urban carpets are utilitarian as much as works of art.
Urban carpets tend to be thicker and have larger borders than rural tribal carpets. Their designs, like any Islamic art form, consist of stylized geometric patterns. These are centred upon a central motif that works its way to a highly detailed border, which echoes the central motif - like in the above photo. One of the most striking features to them are their rich yarns and lustrous colours.
The other type of carpets are rural tribal carpets, which are produced by the hundreds of different ethnic tribal groups, of mainly Berber origin, scattered across Morocco.
Tribal carpet making pre-dates the urban tradition. It is considerably older in fact and is, interestingly, centred predominantly upon less formal, pre-Islamic designs and styles.
Berbers historically, were insular by nature and their carpet making was not influenced by the outside world. Traditionally carpets were made for simply personal and domestic use by women for their own families, who passed weaving techniques down through the generations. The designs and techniques they employed were therefore a remarkable and authentic expression of their unique culture – as they still are today.
Carpets are normally used as bedding, floor coverings or blankets. They are flat-woven, though some are pile rugs, and their designs feature abstract expressive and individual imagery often reflecting superstitious and spiritual beliefs such as wards against the evil eye. For example, wedding blankets are thought to be filled with baraka, or divine blessings, and their mass of sequins supposedly ward off the malevolence that brides are believed to be vulnerable to.
The colouring is more natural than in Rabat rugs and the most sought after carpets have little repetition of design.
Undoubtedly my favourite carpets come from the Beni Ouarain - who are an important Berber tribe from the Middle Atlas mountain region.
The main characteristic of a Beni Ouarain carpet is the shaggy pile - (as above).
Beni Ouarain carpets are all hand loomed in lovely soft bouncy wool shorn from sheep rather than wool removed from a sheepskin. It means they are especially warm and comfortable under foot.
Each carpet is a unique organic piece and highly collectible. No two are ever alike.
Somehow they never fail to compliment and enhance space, and I simply love the creamy golden beige shaggy piles I have in our Marrakech home – that function so nicely on the cold tadelakt flooring. Their zigzag and lozenge designs are particularly cool.
When it comes to buying a carpet, you should inquire about knot density and both the type of dye and fiber used. Better quality carpets have a higher number of knots per square meter, are handmade and constructed from 100% wool or 100% nylon.
Cheaper carpets made of, for example, olefin, are readily available, but these carpets are highly flammable (moving a chair across the carpet can even create scorch marks), they attract more dirt and gray over time. It is also worth noting that synthetic dyes produce bolder colors, but are more likely to fade over time, whereas natural dyes produce lighter long lasting colors.
Chic Marrakech are happy to recommend some reputable carpets dealers.
