An MBA graduate with work experience at Infosys is not who you’d typically expect to find at the helm of a carpet brand. But Rashi Bajaj, 35, likes to challenge herself. And growing up as she did, surrounded by carpets — her father exported Persian and Iranian creations to the United States and Greece — she’d always found them magical. “In 2007, during the recession, I’d come to Bhadohi [Uttar Pradesh] to spend time with my family. My father was winding up his business, but I found myself heading to the factory often, learning the challenges of the trade,” she says. A couple of years later, she moved to Delhi and decided to start Carpet Couture. “It was an experiment, but fortunately business has been good. Carpets truly are my inner calling,” she says.
Today, the brand, which started with just five looms and a small store in Lado Sarai, boasts 75 looms in Bhadohi, and clients including the Fendi Tower in Riyadh, and hotels in Singapore, Maldives and Lebanon, among others. “We work with Australian wool, Indian mulberry silk, cotton, banana and bamboo silk, and more,” says Bajaj. “We are constantly looking for new materials.” This search recently led her to experiment with recycled materials. “When a client in the US asked if we had sustainable options, it just clicked. Sustainability is the new buzzword, and we need to be more eco-friendly. So we are working on carpets made from crushed PET bottle yarn. It is a low-maintenance, hand-tufted fabric which is best woven on a pit loom. It is great for the outdoors, too, because it is hardy and keeps well in the rains,” she explains. Meanwhile, she is also experimenting with aloe vera fibre and recycled denim.
Scribbles are welcome
With a team of five designers — and a host of artists, graphic and textile designers, who bring their own unique perspectives — Carpet Couture incorporates “a fusion” of traditional and contemporary patterns in their hand-tufted, hand-knotted designs. “Personally, I’m a fan of geometric Mughal motifs whose simplicity belie the complex process that goes into creating them. We keep an eye on global fashion and colour trends, too. For example, mixing textures and tone-on-tone are trending right now,” she says.
The brand also sets itself apart by encouraging special requests — from young parents who want to record a personal highlight to lovers of luxury, who want some ‘excess’. “We’ve turned a child’s scribbles into a carpet, while another client wanted to incorporate the footprints of his spiritual guru,” she reminisces. “We’ve also done Swarovski crystal-embellished carpets, but those are not made for heavy footfall.” Though it takes three months to complete a 5x8 foot carpet, Bajaj encourages clients to opt for custom pieces, an option she says is finding more takers now.
“Handcrafted carpets have always been in high demand abroad because Indians are among the best at hand-knotting. But I find that things are very different in the Indian market now from when I started out 10 years ago. [Not only] do people understand the value of handcrafting, but, with more disposable incomes and exposure to diverse tastes via the internet and travel, this is trickling down to their lifestyles and their homes,” she says.
Painting with yarn
Experimentation is key, for Bajaj. In fact, she has installed two looms just for that. “Our designers and weavers are free to use them [whenever they want] to try out various yarns and new patterns,” she explains. Half of her artisans are from Bhadohi and she says many of them are third generation weavers, experts in Persian hand-knotted carpets, who can trace their lineage back to the British era.
Some of these experiments include recreated works by famous artists like SH Raza, Thota Vaikuntham and Sujata Bajaj. The first of these were created in collaboration with Mumbai’s Art and Soul Gallery in 2017, for a charity auction. In the country, look out for their carpets at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, Microsoft’s Gurgaon office and the Bengaluru airport, among many others.
Starting from ₹40,000 for hand-tufted and ₹1,44,000 for hand knotted carpets (8x10 foot). Details:carpetcou ture.com
