Indo Designer Rugs

Visitors to Calgary-based Indo Designer Rugs are in for a surprise, and not just for a wealth of beautiful hand knotted, wool and silk rugs. Indo Designer’s Rana Mehrotra has put the “show” back in showroom.

“I give visitors a 15- to 20-minute museum tour of our rugs to discover just what kind of taste they have and to get to know them,” says Rana, who with his wife, Anchal, co-owns the business now managed by his son, Nishant. “We buy rugs from individuals with whom we’ve had long relationships for individuals with whom we expect to have long relationships.” Membership in GoodWeave® is an important part of sustaining personal and caring relationships.

Rana travels to the far reaches of Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, Nepal and India to find beautiful rugs for the company’s customers from Canada, the US, Europe and as far away as Japan. But it is his wife’s hometown, Varanasi, the hub of Indian rug and sari weaving, where most of Indo Designer’s rugs are born.

Trained as an accountant, Rana admits he wasn’t always a connoisseur of rugs. In fact, he was surprised to find himself loving the craft and the rugs themselves so much. “When I see a rug now, I see art,” he says. “But this art, unlike a painting, you can touch it, sleep on it and feel it under your bare feet.” His favorite is a small silk family rug that his father purchased in Iran in the 1930’s.

Above all, Rana says that he wants people to understand that the tradition he honors can be destroyed by machine-made rugs. Each handmade rug is gloriously different, he says. And of the weavers who do this work that Rana calls “amazing”? Seeing the weavers creating a rug in a small cubbyhole and then later seeing the rug in a beautiful home brings tears to his eyes. “What a journey a carpet takes,” says Rana.

For more information on Indo Designer Rugs, visit www.indodesignerrugs.com.