RUMA

I (Tom) spent a European winter living in a campervan in Southern Morocco, and we kept coming across beautiful, unique handcrafted pieces that, frustratingly, we had no space for. When we eventually bought a house, we knew we must go back and find those colourful treasures again. In a world that can feel a little fixated on the safety of beige and the convenience of IKEA, supporting the makers behind these beautiful pieces, if we could, just made good sense.

Honestly, we look for rugs that have a wow factor. The kind of pieces people are immediately drawn to when they walk into a room. Some of our rugs are real works of art and others err on the side of pure comfort and luxury for the way they physically feel. We also like many that are reversible and have different textures for the seasons.

The rugs are all made in the Southern Atlas Mountains, but sourced in Taroudant, a small market town. They are normally made by women or groups of women. Families have their own style and techniques passed down through generations. When we buy a rug, a minimum of 80% of the purchase price goes directly to the maker, and the remainder goes to the cooperative that we source from.

Generally we look for the rug to be heavy for its size and lay flat on the floor. It should have tight and non-uniform knots on the back, and it should feel supple but also dense. The fringes should also be natural extensions of the main body with no evidence of glue or non-natural materials. All RUMA rugs are handwoven, unique and come with their own charms and imperfections. In fact, if it's too uniform then it's been made by machine!

The rugs are all made by hand and are either woven, embroidered, or a combination of both, and depending on size, can take up to a year to make, like RUMA 01 Paprika, 02 Henna, 03 Saffron and 05 Olive.

The materials are all natural and are typically sheep's wool, camel or both. We only buy rugs that use natural dyes, so you won't see any crazy technicolours in our pieces.