RUGNEWSANDDESIGN.COM | 1

September 2019

RUG NEWSDesignand

Rug News MagaziNe

POB 441MORRis, NY13808

www.rugnewsanddesign.com

12 | RUGNEWSANDDESIGN.COM

“An entry level, machine made, wool rug is a big deal.” Thus began an email exchange between me and Jonathan Witt of Oriental Weavers. Following is our exchange.

JW: We agree 100%. In addition to simply being a machine made wool rug (which we have produced for more than 25 years), this is a brand-new construction and an industry first. It took us eight sampling trials and 20 months to perfect the Lilihan collection.

Axminister rugs have long been the standard for fine power loomed wool rugs. They allow the designer to incorporate 2 to 3 times the number of colors in each rug compared to the majority of traditional Wilton woven looms producing rugs today. In true Oriental Weavers fashion, we have taken the limits of the Axminister loom and stretched them beyond the engineer’s imagination. While Lili-han’s roots are that of a classic Ax-minister woven rug, we were actually able to cross-weave on a gripper Ax-minister loom for the very first time.

In addition to the first of its kind weave structure, we developed a new yarn dying process that sepa-rates this yarn from other machine space dyed wool products in the market. Most of the time yarns that are space dyed on a machine versus the original techniques used in the handcrafted category will provide a nice texture, but the space between

each variation of the color is always well defined and consistent. With this new collection, we developed a new process for machine space dying that allows us to emulate the “imperfect perfection” of the orig-inal antique dyed rugs.

The cross woven technique allowed us the ability to showcase the stri-ations of the new specially dyed yarns horizontally instead of vertical-ly. We have done this in the past on traditional Wilton looms, but no one has ever been able to produce a cross woven Axminister and take advantage of the additional number of colors that can be used on Ax-

minister looms. The effect created with the new yarn system truly gives the rugs look and feel of an antique and knotted rug.

In addition, the cross woven con-struction allowed us to produce the rugs with an incorporated fringe ver-sus the sewn fringe that Axminister rugs have required.

LS: And from what I see in the mar-ketplace, village designs which lend themselves to scatters, are trending.

JW: Very true! We are headed that direction!

LS: I don’t know the price point, or your distribution plans, but wool is a step up for mass and online mer-chants. The question is how far can they step up and can they service

OW Pushes Weaving Technology

design and texture detail

12 | RUGNEWSANDDESIGN.COM

RUGNEWSANDDESIGN.COM | 13

that market? I know India is looking at machine woven wool. The Turk-ish wool production so far is small (two or three old machines) and fairly expensive.

JW: We are targeting an aggressive price point of $499 for the 5’3”7’3” size and $999 on the 7’10”x10’10” size. The obvious distribution will be with furniture stores, interior designers and department stores. We are constantly hearing from those retailers that the supply of quality handcrafted rugs is dwindling each year. We see that is a real oppor-tunity for the machine may business in general and more specifically this collection. Based on the tremendous response we received in Las Vegas and in subsequent meetings with large retailers, we will most definitely be building additional color creels and design direction for this awesome new construction.

You are correct that this price point is too high for the mass merchants and also opening price point furniture retailers. At this point these price points are still a small percentage of the overall e-commerce purchases, but we have seen growth in these types of price points through pure playing and omni-channel e-commerce sites over the last 12 to 18 months. In fact, two of our best-selling rugs in the e-com-merce segment are now at a $399 and $499 price point.

LS: As a product I am fascinated by this introduction. I will point out that I have in the woodshed one of the first oriental designs produced by Oriental Weavers. I had it washed and it looks great. Thank you.

RUGNEWSANDDESIGN.COM | 13