Their nomadic story began in 1898 in Mashad, Persia, with the trading and manufacture of carpets, emulating to some extent the destiny of the objects they produce: headquarters in Milan since 1968, production in Nepal from early 2000, art direction in Paris as of 2010, global marketing right from the outset. The business Eliahu, Elia, Nathan and Benjamin inherited from their great grandfather Hajizadeh Golran, then handed down by their fathers, Nemat and Ruben, along with the teachings of the great master knotters in Persia, Turkey and India form the precious cultural background, now accessible to the design world and tailored to the technological evolution.
www.golran.com
THE CONTEMPORARY COLLECTIONS
The GARDEN OF EDEN Collection
The new collection of rugs Garden of Eden designed by India Mahdavi takes Persian gardens as a source of inspiration, forming a connection with a tradition belonging both to Golran’s history as well as Mahdavi’s eclectic background. For Golran, India Mahdavi designed a collection distinguished by a pattern of smooth leaves. Gradually overlapping toward the centre, they seem swept up by the wind, carried by a gust travelling over the centuries-old tradition of Persian carpets.The first “garden” is more classic, having a rectangular format, a generously framed central decoration, and zigzag edges to replace the fringes. The second is created by removing the central pattern from the initial design, to reveal a wild garden. The extraction of this piece creates a freer, all-over pattern, resulting in an irregularly shaped rug suited to the furnishing of less conventional spaces. By breaking out of the confines of shape and adding movement, India Mahdavi offers a new interpretation of carpets inspired by Eastern gardens.
The collection is available in four colourways, a range of four colourways renders homage to the months and seasons: March is green, June is honey yellow in anticipation of summer, September has warm orange tones, and December is black and white.
HUNUA COLLECTION
In this collection created in partnership with Piero Lissoni, even the name, Hunua, reflects the deliberately universal nature of the project. Unua is in fact the first book ever written in Esperanto, a symbol of universal dialogue between peoples, fruit of the cultural nomadism that now enriches our past traditions with new meanings. The rugs in the collection combine the know-how of Golran, seen in the artisanal skills and the choice of elegant materials such as silk, with the innovative research of Piero Lissoni. Within each rug the different weaves, constructed tone-on-tone to create a single composition, form a visual whole that gives the sense of a precious and varied mosaic: its structure is that of an elegant collage of monochrome graphic embroidery. The collection is available in five colourways – blue, white, steel, red and bronze, and combines the art of Nepalese handcraft and rug making with the most sophisticated of tailor-made sartorial details, illustrating how different techniques and traditions can be combined to create elaborate artefacts.
PARALLELI COLLECTION
The collection reflects DIMORE STUDIO’s custom of bringing together different materials and eras while using the rug’s texture to express them in a new way. Baroque allusions of embroidery, edgings, frames and ornamental motifs and personalized revisitations of Persian and Indian patterns contrast with the simplicity of exquisite monochrome and contemporary-art inserts. Geometric shapes and lines reference minimalism and American postpictorial abstractionism. The weave features metallic inserts, like scoring; thick, visible seams to stitch these different worlds together. The collection is available in three versions according to colour scheme and finishing details.
METEO COLLECTION
Golran presents the Meteo collection, characterised by a poetic and evanescent use of colour and capable of making the wefts of each single carpet disappear to create veritable soft patches similar to light clouds of embroidery.
Meteo, designed by the French designer Inga Sempé, is a collection which reinterprets in a contemporary key the classical Persian carpet.
The faded effect of the weft, which makes it possible to obtain a geometric design through blurred lines, is obtained thanks to the skilful artisan technique from Nepal which can give a result similar to that of pointillism, that uses individual coloured threads of wool and silk for each point of the design, as if each knot was the single piece of a mosaic.
The Meteo collection presents three models with three different designs, each available in different variations of colour: Halo, Mirage and Tumulte. The new collaboration with the French designer Inga Sempé marks another step in the development of the contemporary collections of the Golran brand.
LAKE COLLECTION
The collection, conceived as second reading of the persian rug, takes its inspiration from the lenticular artist Yaacov Agam who, together with Victor Vasarely, revolutionised the world of optic perception in art.
An iridescent collection, capable of moving from the vivid colours of daytime to the less bright shades of the evening, just like the mirror of water of a lake, “agam” in Hebrew, changes its reflection.
“Imagine a rug that looks very vivid and colourful when you leave home, but the very same rug will appear more relaxing and calming when coming back from work. It is like having two approaches for one thing, two different ways to look at it but then when standing at the right place, you could actually see the whole picture. This may sound like illusion confusion but it is all based on existing op-art lenticular technique that thanks to Golran, and their craftsmen in Nepal, has been translated into marvellous rug making. The graphic of the first series is based on traditional kilim, but here in varying heights of pile technique”. Yael Mer & Shay Alkalay, Raw Edges.
The collection has been selected for major awards, incuding the Elle Deco International Design Awards 2015, The Architizer A+A Awards 2015, and the Dulux Let’s colour Award 201. It has been nominated for the Best British Patterns section of the Elle Decoration British Awards 2014.
The Lake Collection won the Wallpaper Design Award 2015 for the Best Optical Illusion.
MEMORIES COLLECTION
A unique original collection designed for Golran by artist and designer Isabella Sodi from Florence. She transmits her precious aesthetic and cultural know-how of interior design and haute couture through her personal interpretation of the carpet. The collection includes items charged with a powerful emotional impact, suspended between past and future. It is firmly anchored to tradition, starting from the production site – Nepal – where the most important “carpet making tool” is experience. The result is a collection that, with great sensitivity, delves into the precious art of carpet weaving, focusing in particular on the ancient Oriental techniques. The use of colors is very personal, made of light variations that vibrate between the sheen of silk and the “dusty” patina of wool. A mix of fibers and textures imbued with clever touches of slight imperfections that are incorporated on purpose in order to create rugs that speak to the allure of instinct and handcraft. The collection, which each year adds new colors, is available in the basic version in linen, wool, silk, and natural fibers, and in cashmere in the top of the range.
CARPET RELOADED – DECOLORIZED COLLECTION
The Decolorized line includes vintage carpets that are knotted by hand consistently with the tradition, and are then subjected to a decoloration process followed by re-dyeing with monochromatic vegetal dyes.
Each type of yarn and weave has a different reaction to the decoloration and dyeing process, thus yielding changeable hues and effects in an extensive choice of nuances, ranging from bold bright shades to natural tones and pastels.
DECOLORIZED MOHAIR COLLECTION
CARPET RELOADED – PATCHWORK COLLECTION
The patchwork carpets, which are also unique items, are all handmade by cutting and expertly re-sewing vintage carpets, which are, then, dyed with monochromatic vegetal dyes to create a range of bright hues and soft natural shades. The patchwork technique enables carpets to be produced in the desired dimensions and assembled to achieve the desired final visual effect. In practice, patchwork starts from the detail to finally reach the general composition, highlighting the charming decorations and textures of oriental carpets. All processing stages are manually performed with precious yarns, consistently with the ancient art of embroidery.
With the Decolorized line of classical carpets, which are decolorized and re-dyed, the Carpet Reloaded collection offers an innovative living trend that is also extended and developed with a creative experimental approach in the Patchwork line.
PATCHWORK RESTYLED COLLECTION
THE TRADITIONAL COLLECTIONS
ANTIQUE COLLECTION
With over 100 years of experience and tradition in the sector, and thanks to a well-established network of experts operating on the leading markets and at the most important auction houses, Golran has created a collection of precious antique carpets.It is the fruit of meticulous selection to identify only the most prized pieces. Dating from the nineteenth to the early twentieth century and produced by famous master weavers, they are the highest expressions of Oriental and European carpets, of great value and sophistication,appropriate for furnishing and embellishing all settings.
With their decorations and motifs they are excellent examples of a historical heritage and recount ancient traditions that have been handed down through the generations until becoming authentic collector’s pieces and antiques today.They bear witness to the fact that the art of the carpet has always been a symbol of the aspiration to beauty.
Each region and each country has its own recognisable motif, which reflects the style and culture of its place of provenance. Antique carpets carry their history and their origins with them, woven and embroidered.
CLASSIC COLLECTION
A collection of precious carpets dating from the mid-twentieth century to the current day. They are inspired by original antique models, whose values they express, along with the honour of representing one of the highest expressions of Oriental, and particularly Persian, art and culture.
Vaunting a tradition handed down for over three generations, Golran continues its fascinating search for prized pieces, also selecting contemporary master knotters capable of freely interpreting the models of the past without distorting them, but rendering them in a style more appropriate to today’s needs and lifestyles.The decorations and patterns are rich and elaborate, like the use of colours, embellished with elegant working techniques using precious yarns like wool and silk.
Like their illustrious antique models, they not only exemplify the art of weaving, but are also capable of giving rooms a strong, personal style.
