Turning on carpet shops, in internet or on some magazines, Zigler carpets are offered.

Or rather, carpets called with this name.

“Zigler is the name of the design rather than a city or tribe. These carpets represent a rather modern production that began in the 1990s between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and have success not only locally but also globally. The origins of the designs and work of these carpets is rooted in the Persian empire of the last ‘800, inspired by the Ziegler carpets, by the name of the Persian carpet export company based in Manchester, which in those years had opened Its commercial offices in the Persian city of Sultanabad, commissioning all local knottier drawings and formats specially designed for the western market ”

Zigler is not the name of a drawing. It is the name with which I Fabio Morandi call a collection of carpets knotted in Pakistan and proposed in my shops. I would not do it, but I’m forced to make you understand what we are talking about.

Unfortunately, this term, which is often written “Ziegler”, is exactly the same as the prestigious company that sold carpets at the end of the nineteenth century, and is quoted to give a value to a number of recent manufactures. Whose characteristics sometimes vary considerably between them.

Zigler Originality

Studying better Zigler Carpets and searching on the internet, it emerges that:

“Until the end of 1800 Western merchants had to adapt to dimensions and designs to Persian production. When the Ziegler and Co. started setting up its production according to customer needs in Europe, the situation changed and there was more freedom to choose carpets. The main element that characterizes the specimens currently knotted in Pakistan and Afghanistan is the materials used for knotting. These are coloured woole yarn using traditional methods and using natural dyes: this feature gives to the finished carpet a particular patina and a non-uniformity in the colour which becomes a fundamental decorative element, an index of quality and authenticity. On the European market, these carpets are called in many ways, often linked to the kind of decoration or to the materials used”

Decorations, Drawings and Designs

Finally, a hint to the materials and colors used to knot Zigler carpets:

“The great success of these artifacts is attributed to the beauty of the drawings and to the refinement of colors that, being very pale and harmonious, allow to be included without problems in the most varied furnishing contexts, from the most classic to the modern ones. In the last decade, historical research has pushed production towards a more familiar Western design moving manufacturing to Pakistan because they are particularly sensitive to market needs. Special care of details justifies the adoption of vegetable dyes for Zigler carpets that become, thanks to their warm colors, perfect furnishings for any contemporary environment. Even the materials are the best available on the global market, in fact the raw material used to knot these carpets is New Zealand and Australian woole, hand-carded”

My comment is, “Do not exaggerate!”

Often the hard-to-find and high-cost vegetable dye is used to destabilize the chemical dye and obtain a natural effect with abrashs that opens in the field of the carpet even without the natural degradation of time and light.