Handmade Rugs: The Sustainable Choice

One-of-a-kind handmade rugs are created using techniques and materials that go back generations and have been largely unchanged by industrialization. They employ all-natural, renewable wool, cotton and dyes and practically every step of the process is done by hand with little or no reliance on the power grid. If you are a shopper who values sustainable solutions, the best answer is right beneath your feet in the form of a beautiful handmade rug.

Sustainability. Handmade rugs are created with wool yarn knotted onto a natural wool or cotton foundation. Wool is the ultimate sustainable fiber. It is shorn from the animal and grows back naturally to be harvested again. The sheep that provide rug wool are raised in small herds that graze the often-mountainous areas near the villages where the rugs are woven. Shorn wool is hand-cleaned and hand-spun into skeins of yarn. The skeins are dyed into an array of colors that even today are created mostly with natural dyes from sustainable sources.

Reusability. A well-cared for handmade rug lasts generations. This is not true of the glut of synthetic and machine-made floorcoverings produced today. The choice is between a beautiful handmade heirloom and an inexpensive area rug that will soon be discarded and replaced.

Sustainable Culture. When you purchase a handmade rug you are supporting a traditional, family-based trade that provides economic opportunity to needy parts of the world. The weaving techniques and designs are passed from parent to child. Because we value these traditions, all Navab Brothers rugs are purchased directly through weavers’ representatives we have personally vetted to ensure the rugs are made using only non-exploitative practices based on fair-trade standards.