Why a silk rug?
Silk is the finest fibre a weaver can work with. Each strand is long, strong and very thin, so it can be tied into far smaller knots than wool. More knots in the same space means a finer drawing: tendrils, petals and faces that would blur in wool stay crisp in silk.
Silk also holds dye with a depth and clarity wool cannot match, and its smooth surface reflects light. Walk around a silk rug and its colours change: from one side the pile looks pale and luminous, from the other deep and saturated. Collectors call it the rug "turning", and it is one of the quiet pleasures of living with a piece.
Because they are fine and precious, silk rugs are often hung on a wall, framed, or laid in rooms with little foot traffic. A well-made silk rug, cared for, will outlive the people who buy it.
Real silk or "art silk"?
Much of what is sold as silk in markets and online is viscose, also called art silk, banana silk or bamboo silk. It is a manufactured fibre made from wood pulp. It shines beautifully when new, costs a fraction of real silk, and wears badly: it crushes, loses its sheen and is easily damaged by water. There is nothing wrong with viscose at a viscose price; the problem is paying a silk price for it. A few checks help:
- Look at the back. On a hand-knotted rug the pattern shows clearly on the back, with every knot visible and slightly irregular. A machine-made rug shows a perfectly even grid, and a tufted rug hides its back under glued cloth.
- Look at the fringe. On a hand-knotted rug the fringe is the end of the warp threads that run through the whole rug. A fringe sewn on afterwards is a warning sign.
- Feel it. Real silk feels smooth, cool and dense, with a slight grip as you rub it. Viscose often feels slippery and lighter, and it creases where it is folded.
- The burn test, with permission. A loose strand of real silk burns slowly, smells of burnt hair and leaves a dark ash that crumbles. Viscose burns quickly, like paper. Only ever test a stray thread, and only with the seller's agreement.
- Ask for it in writing. A serious seller states the fibre of the pile and of the foundation, the knot density and the origin, and stands behind it. Every Professio rug comes with a signed certificate of handmade authenticity.
Knot density, and why it matters
A hand-knotted rug is built knot by knot on a loom: the weaver ties a short length of yarn around two vertical warp threads, cuts it to form the pile, finishes the row and beats it down. The number of knots in a square centimetre (or a square inch) is the single best measure of how fine a rug is.
To count it, turn the rug over and count the knots along one centimetre horizontally and one centimetre vertically, then multiply the two. The Turkish trade names a rug by that count. A 10'luk has 10 knots by 10 in every square centimetre: 100 knots per square centimetre, about 645 per square inch. A 15'lik has 15 by 15: 225 per square centimetre, about 1,450 per square inch. Both are fine silk rugs; the 15'lik takes more than twice as long to weave.
Every Professio floor rug, Hereke or Kayseri, is a 10'luk, and that is the density we state on each piece. The numbers add up quickly: a 10'luk of one square metre holds a million hand-tied knots, and our flagship Midnight Bloom, at 110 by 75 centimetres, holds about 825,000. That is why fine silk pieces take months on the loom, and why knot density, more than size, drives the value of a silk rug.
Turkish rugs are tied with the symmetrical knot, which wraps both warps; Persian city rugs mostly use the asymmetrical knot, which wraps one. You can see the two side by side, and zoom into real knot maps, in our Heritage & Origins documentary.
Hereke and Kayseri silk rugs, Tabriz wall carpets
Hereke
Hereke is a small town on the Gulf of İzmit, east of Istanbul, where the Ottoman court founded an imperial workshop in 1843. Its silk carpets furnished the palaces of the Bosphorus and were given as diplomatic gifts. Today "Hereke" is used both for rugs from the town and as a style name for very fine Turkish silk rugs with medallion, prayer and garden designs. Ask whether a rug was woven in Hereke or in the Hereke style; both can be beautiful, but they are not the same thing. Read the full story of Hereke silk, or see our Hereke silk rugs.
Kayseri
Kayseri, ancient Caesarea and the old capital of Cappadocia, is one of the great weaving centres of Türkiye, producing rugs in wool, silk and art silk. Because quality varies so widely, a rug described only as "Kayseri" tells you where it is from, not what it is made of; always ask about the fibre and the knot density. Our Kayseri rugs are pure silk, every one a 10'luk. Explore the Kayseri silk rugs.
Tabriz
Tabriz, in north-western Iran, is one of the oldest carpet cities of Persia, and its workshops are especially renowned for pictorial carpets: paintings, miniatures and landscapes translated knot by knot into wool and silk. They are made to hang like paintings, and every wall carpet in our collection comes from Tabriz. See the Tabriz wall carpets.
Natural dyes
Before synthetic dyes arrived in the nineteenth century, every colour in a rug came from nature: reds from the root of the madder plant, blues from indigo, yellows from weld and other plants, browns from walnut husk. Natural dyes give colours that vary slightly from batch to batch and soften gracefully with age. That gentle variation, called abrash, is a sign of a living material, not a flaw.
What a silk rug costs, and why
The price of a handmade silk rug comes from a handful of things: the fibre (pure silk on a silk foundation is the most costly), the knot density, the size, the complexity of the design, the dyes, the workshop, and the condition and age of the piece. A small, fine silk rug can cost more than a large wool one, simply because it holds more knots and more months of work.
In our collection, prices run from a few hundred dollars for small framed silks to over twenty thousand dollars for museum-scale pictorial carpets. If a "pure silk" rug of real size is offered for very little, it is almost certainly not silk, not hand-knotted, or both.
Choosing a size and a place
- Cabinet pieces and framed silks (under one square metre) suit a wall, a console or a study, where they can be seen up close.
- Salon rugs (one to two square metres) anchor a reading corner or a bedside, or hang as a tapestry.
- Runners lead along a hallway or the foot of a bed.
- Round and octagonal rugs sit beautifully under a table or in an entrance hall.
- Grand pictorial silks are often hung like paintings, where their detail can be read across a room.
Caring for a silk rug
- Keep it out of strong direct sunlight, which fades silk over time.
- Rotate floor rugs once or twice a year so they wear and age evenly.
- Vacuum gently without a beater bar, or simply shake small pieces.
- Blot spills straight away with a clean, dry cloth; never rub, and never soak.
- Entrust deep cleaning and repairs only to a specialist in hand-knotted silk.
Buying a rug from Türkiye
Buying directly from the people who make and keep the rugs removes the layers of mark-up between the loom and your home. With Professio, every piece is shipped insured from Türkiye, rolled or framed, with export paperwork and a signed certificate. Import duties depend on your country. If you would like to see a rug properly before deciding, we hold private viewings by video call, close up on the pile, the back and the knots.
Designers, hotels and retailers sourcing several pieces, or a commission to measure, can use our trade and wholesale portal.