How to Buy Vintage Moroccan Berber Rugs

Maroc Tribal has been sourcing original Moroccan tribal rugs for almost 20 years and over that time these textiles have reached international popularity at a remarkable speed.  A somewhat small niche market for old, authentic made-for-home Berber rugs has grown into a worldwide design trend. So, when you see something labelled as a vintage rug, how do you know what is behind that term?

With our wealth of knowledge and in-depth insight, we try to concentrate our passion on local, handmade Moroccan rugs which rural people made for their own domestic use. And to source rugs of another era that hold important value in terms of quality and tradition. This is naturally a small and dwindling market. So, a supply has been developed with copies and ‘vintage-fied’ rugs. We want to help buyers find a way through this, to discover rugs with real history or honourable provenance

I suppose I would call something vintage if it is over 25 years old, but increasingly I avoid dating our Moroccan rugs to certain years as a lot of the time it can’t be done accurately and honestly, and I tend to look for a few clues that can help me determine approximate age. Occasionally Berber weavers wove a date into their rugs although this is a technique now put to use in new rugs to pass them off as old. It was more common that women would weave a name into a rug than a date

Look for Signs that the Rug Was Not Woven for You

Original Berber and Arab rugs were a way to express a unique culture and experience, tied to specific places and peoples. Since most old rugs were woven for personal use, there was no need to please a buying market. While the seemingly modern, avant-guard, or anarchic designs of Berber rugs appeal hugely, it is useful to look for signs that these rugs were not woven for us. Many will be large, long, and narrow, having been woven for rectangular Berber rooms or, with the oldest rugs, tents 

Smaller runner-like rugs were woven as seating that ran along a long wall, or as saddle covers, among other uses. What we might term a ‘kilim’ was probably created as a thick blanket (a hanbel) to keep the whole family warm at night. Boucherouite rugs were easy-to-weave general-use items for daily life at home, woven with recycled scrap of textiles and clothes. Wealthy families might have commissioned large prestigious rugs to be handwoven by master weavers (who were often men) and this was regarded as a household investment. Rugs were created with utility in mind. None were woven with a thought for our modern rooms, and that is a glorious thing

Why Made-for-Home Old Rugs are Special

When families wove for themselves in the past, they would have taken control of every part of the process: rearing sheep, preparing lovely quality wool and yarn, creating the design and the story the textile would contain, and hand tying the knots that made up the rug. These rugs were made to last a lifetime, often taking months or years to weave at home. A weaver might only create one or two big family rugs in her life. Every resource was valued and women wanted to do exceptional quality work and create an object they were immensely proud of. The composition and symbols would be personal to the weaver, the tribe, or the peoples of the region. So it makes sense that these rugs have a more lush history, a more complex and intimate design narrative, a more interesting use of colour, and simply represent much better quality craftwork than carpets woven in working weaving centres to sell

Understand the Colours Weavers Used

Any thoughtful study of historic Moroccan rugs will show weavers’ love of strong colours that were bold, deep, and daring. Think clear red, claret, maroon, violet, emerald, blood orange, dark tangerine, and deep blue. Colour use was regional because until dyes could be bought at the market, women relied on using what natural sources were available locally. Bought and chemical dyes were introduced much earlier than you’d imagine - as far back as the 1800s - and most weavers had stopped making broad use of natural dyes by the 1950s and 60s.  Vegetable dyes were not the only way to go, and an old rug created using bought dyes is just as valuable and artistic as one using natural tints

While some colours will soften with age and fading, the fantasy of rugs in pretty peach, soft ochre, blush, and light apricot is one that has generally been created to sell to us. On the whole, these colours are achieved by chemically washing the rugs, with products that are not permitted in Europe and the US

Where colour is absent it will be substituted with pure undyed hues. The most recognisable examples are big, thick Beni Ouarain rugs from the northeastern Middle Atlas. Old rugs will have been created using wool straight from the sheep – just washed, carded, and spun. Moroccan sheep (and goats) provide a surprising range of buttercream, beige, chocolate, fawn, charcoal, and grey wool – not just cream and brown – and you should be able to see these hues, and more, used in original old textiles. Jet black wool will always be the result of dying. Ivory wool is not natural in Moroccan rugs and, again, you get it through bleaching and harsh treatment

Examine the Weaving Style - Get Down to the Roots

It is probably because I am obsessed with tribal rugs that I am so interested in how they are structured. Weaving techniques and materials can identify where a rug came from just as much as design and colour can, as they differed from region to region. Generally, weavers used one of four types of knots and if you look at various old Moroccan rugs, you’ll be able to see how these differ. If you inspect the knots of a lovely old rug you should see the finest work: sometimes thick and double twisted (known as ‘quatifa’), sometimes curly and glossy, and at other times tiny and fine like silk

Knot count wasn’t that important, and knots can be large and spaced out for softness and insulation.  Since weavings were often made for bedding, the carpet needed to be comfortable and flexible. The nature of their construction also allows for hand-knotted rugs to have more detailed designs. Maybe knotting is a subject only for the carpet-obsessed like me, but if you really want an authentic old rug, it is worth taking some time to look deep into a piece

Read the Story of the Wear and Tear

A good rug is made from good resources. Yet all rugs will age over time, and wear can tell a good story. Wear might be uneven since family life would have meant that some areas got more use than others. Fold wear and mended fold holes are common as carpets were routinely folded lengthwise during the day and sat on. To fold them, they would be gripped right in the middle at either end then picked up and folded in two lengthwise, and you can often see distinct wear and fraying in the middle of each end of a long rug. Missing end borders and corners are also among some of the most common issues with older rugs, and the original owners may have made this good with simple repairs or by shortening the rug. Patches, darns, and small stains are to be expected. Fading might not be uniform since rugs were multi-use and some areas will have been exposed more than others. These were hardworking household items after all. Newly woven vintage-fied rugs are often beaten up to replicate decades of wear. However, this rarely echoes how a rug would have been used in a Moroccan home

As the supply of actual old Moroccan rugs rapidly diminishes, there has been a resurgence in weaving new rugs, sometimes with an honesty and openness about these being contemporary pieces. We ourselves buy and stock some new rugs. I truly hope that this preserves the traditional crafts of my country of birth as well as protects the environment from harmful production and washing practices. Some interesting collaborative initiatives have sprung up in recent years, although I don’t know enough about them to make sincere recommendations

Are Vintage Rugs Hard to Find?

I need to revisit something I have said before, which is ‘vintage’ Berber Moroccan rugs are hard to find. They are not. Walk into any dealer’s shop in the souks of Marrakesh and you’ll find hundreds of rugs piled high floor to ceiling. In any colour or western-room appropriate size you want. This is where many of the rugs that find their way onto sellers’ websites come from. What I really mean is genuine old made-for-home tribal rugs - high-quality, authentic carpets - are very hard to find. They are where they should be, in Berber families’ homes far away from tourist centres and we have to wait until they want to sell them to discover and buy them. This is a time-consuming and truly joyous process

Ask Questions

In the end, if you want a genuine old Moroccan tribal rug, you really want to trust who you are dealing with. I know from many years of growing up with and working with carpets, that to truly understand Moroccan rugs that you need to have done some earnest study into the subject along with extensive field expeditions. Or to have grown up seeped in the Moroccan Berber and Arab culture from which rugs originate. Probably both. I know that a lot of the charm of an old rug lies in the history of the practice behind it. Yet with great writing, good photography, and clever invention, it is easy to create exotic stories and cultural clichés that don’t reflect the reality of Moroccan weaving and the truth about tribal life in days gone by

In the spirit of championing authentic tribal rugs, I thought hard about sources who really do find historic pieces with conscientious effort. To that end, I have for many years admired Berber Arts for genuine deep knowledge of the subject, and a visit to this dealer’s website is always a treat for rug lovers!

Thank you for sharing my passion for old textiles

Mohammed