Traditional

Oushak, Kazak, Tabriz and Mahi — four of the oldest patterns in rug weaving, tied knot by knot in wool. This is one of the smallest collections in the store and the one with the least turnover, because every piece is one of a kind.

What separates these from a machine-made rug printed with the same pattern is not only how long they last. A hand-knotted rug has abrash, the faint horizontal banding where one dye lot of wool met the next, and a pile that reflects light differently depending on which way you walk across it. Neither can be manufactured, and both are what people mean when they say a rug has depth.

These rugs are bought once. Expect to hand a good Oushak to someone rather than replace it, and expect the price to reflect a year of somebody's work rather than an afternoon of a loom's.

Every piece here sits in our Aberdeen Township showroom. Come and stand on one — this is the part of the catalog that a screen serves worst.