At Milan Design Week 2024, Indian brand Jaipur Rugs demonstrated its expertise with three new collections unveiled at its boutique store next to Piazza Castello, in the hearth of the city. The company collaborated with Vimar1991, the prestigious yarn producer owned by Chanel since 2020, with Michele de Lucchi’s AMDL Circle, as well as with multidisciplinary practice DAAA Haus.
Based in Rajasthan, Jaipur Rugs was founded in 1978 by Nand Kishore Chaudhary, also known in India as the Gandhi of the carpet design industry: it began with nine artisans on two looms and grew to become one of India's largest companies of hand-knotted rugs, related to a strong social foundation.
Jaipur Rugs' Vimar1991 collaboration
Given this legacy, the Vimar1991 collaboration may appear unexpected. When you walk into the Milanese showroom, you first notice those Vimar1991 x Jaipur Rugs carpets, featuring an alternating tessellation of light and dark solid checks that recalls the iconic duotone textile pattern. The couture-quality carpets are made of monochrome yarns and appear to be woven using catwalk techniques, such as bouclé tweeds and herringbone twills. They look like a massive soft jacket of iconic elegance spread out in front of your feet: ‘The collection consists of 23 black and white rugs: we attempted to capture the allure of haute couture fabrics but in massive size,’ confirms Camilla Fasoli, Head of Style and Design Department and Vimar1991.
‘The checks are much larger, but inside you can see the gold and silver parts of the yarn, emphasising the preciousness of the couture.’ Vimar1991 produces fancy yarns, she underlines, and their speciality is combining different techniques to create a one-of-a-kind blend: ‘We have collections for the open market, as well as yarns made specifically for clients such as Chanel.’ The Piedmont-based company’s archives now hold tens of thousands of yarns and, in one year, they create approximately one thousand prototypes. ‘The level of creativity is undeniably high,’ she says.
‘Of course, I've always known Chanel, and when I met Davide Goria, CEO of Vimar1991, I was intrigued to learn about the various types of yarn that they make,’ says Yogesh Chaudhary, Director of Jaipur Rugs. ‘It naturally led to the discussion that we should experiment with making carpets out of these yarns.’
Jaipur rugs with Vimar1991: how they're made
While pointing out that the hand knotted rugs are the company's masterpieces, Chaudhary turns one carpet upside down, pointing at the back of a carpet, where countless tiny knots resemble pixels in a photograph. The number of knots in a small square, he explains, indicates how long it took the artisan to weave the rug. And, naturally, the more knots, the more valuable the rug will be.
Hand knot and flat woven techniques are used for the Vimar1991 collaboration: ‘To be more precise, in the first case, we speak about the Tibetan technique, with the tarn looped around two warps and a rod. After the rod is covered in loops, a cut is made to create a pile and to remove the rod,’ says Chaudhary. Making a single carpet with this technique requires two to three craftsmen to work on the loom every day for four to eight weeks.
This is Vimar1991's first time working with rugs, but they have previously experimented with interior design. ‘Two years ago, we worked with Elisa Ossino, developing an upholstery fabric for a sofa,’ says Fasoli. For Jaipur Rugs, the collaboration with the Piedmont-based yarn producer represents a step in a new artistic direction. ‘We will continue to keep our focus and the name of the brand to be very craftmanship and artisanal oriented, which is the DNA of Jaipur Rugs,’ agrees Chaudhary. ‘Yet, we are definitely looking for more global collaborations that, like Vimar 1991, will respect the brand's legacy of craftsmanship.’
