Berber rugs: love at first sight

“a rug on the loom has a soul, and when it is cut off, the soul dies and is reborn into a new life in someone’s home”

(Fatima Fdil di Ben Smim che tesse tappeti da oltre 50 anni)

I still remember my first trip to Morocco and my fascination for the colors and designs of the carpets, which I found everywhere in Marrakech: in the riads, in the many shops of the souk that display them in small and large spaces and where they are folded, stacked and placed against the walls, as if they were soft and colored walls, a casual arrangement that creates chromatic harmonies.

The fascination continued when, after leaving Marrakech heading south, I found them hanging on the terraces of the stone and mud houses of the Atlas mountains, or lying scattered, like coloured mosaic tiles, on the hedges and rocks by small stream of water, where the women from the village had just washed them.

Deep down till Merzouga where I found them enriching with their colors the tents of the camp on the dunes, the simple houses of the village, and even the humble huts of the nomads. A constant element of the country and of any trip to Morocco.

And the history of the Berber carpet is lost in the mists of time, and it is an artifact that has always decorated local tents and houses.

The carpet is an all-female art, it is in fact made by women at home, often with rudimentary looms, and the tradition is handed down from mother to daughter. The designs that characterize them have particular meanings, linked above all to the life experiences of the woman who makes the carpet, a kind of secret diary that contains crucial moments, joys and sorrows. The symbols are often repeated and are linked to the life cycle: marriage, birth, nature, the sun, the moon. Many of the symbols are the patrimony of the community to which they belong and are similar for all the carpets of this community, while others are typical and unique to each woman.

The carpets are made to decorate the houses, which are very often plain and bare, and represent the focal and colourful point of the dwelling. Here the family sits around low tables to eat, and here they often sleep too. Shoes are left at the entrance and you walk barefoot on these magnificent creations.

The raw material is sheep, goat or camel wool, cotton or "sabra", a vegetal silk extracted from agaves, and sometimes even the remains of rags.

The rugs we have selected for our bags are kilims from Oued Zem a small town located north-east of Marrakech, in the Atlas Mountains, they are light, shaved and characterized by bright colors with a velvety touch.

Each bag is a UNIQUE object because each carpet is UNIQUE, as UNIQUE are the women who decide to buy them and enrich their wardrobe with these precious objects.

The fascination with Morocco and its colors continues in every single IFULKKI bag.