Jaipur Living, a rug company based in Atlanta, Georgia, creates beautiful, handcrafted rugs designed and woven by local artisans in India. Here we talk with Asha Chaudhary, president of Jaipur Living, about the process of crafting the Zebulon and Rodez rugs, as well as the business’s innovative model of giving back to global makers.
Q. Your father originally started the company. Could you tell me about that?
A. In 1978, my father, NK Chaudhary, started Jaipur Rugs as a socially-conscious business in our family’s home in 1978 with two looms and nine weavers. Today, it’s India’s largest manufacturer of hand-knotted rugs and works with more than 40,000 artisans, 70% of them women, in 700 Indian villages. I’m happy to say their work has been internationally recognized for high design and unparalleled quality.
Q. What is the process of making the Zebulon and Rodez rugs?
A. Zebulon is a handwoven flat-weave rug. The yarn is braided or woven directly on a loom, and this creates an extremely tight, long-wearing weave. These rugs don’t have a backing, so they are often reversible.
Rodez is a hand-tufted rug. After a rug backing is prepared with a design, the weaver uses a tufting gun to push the yarn through it. The yarn is held in place with loopers that can be carved to create a high-low pile. At Jaipur Living, we created a video to show how our weaver uses the tufting gun.
Q. How has the company evolved in the past few decades?
A. Jaipur Rugs is known by our customers in the U.S. as Jaipur Living, Inc. We’ve taken the beautiful products of artisans and really expanded on them. We’ve also embraced new rug constructions and moved into other soft textiles like pillows, poufs and throws – always with my father’s vision in mind to make life beautiful through great design and respect for artisans.
Q. How do you ensure each product measures up to your standards of quality?
A. First and foremost, we work with the best quality materials – no matter what the fiber. For example, happy, live sheep provide durable and soft wool. Our synthetic and plant material quality is just as important. From the amount of moisture to the strength of the yarn, our viscose goes through many, many quality checks and tests to ensure Jaipur Living is providing the very best and most beautiful products. Also, the product we source from our operations in India must make it through a very rigorous round of quality checks before even being shipped to us in Georgia. Hand-knotted rugs pass through almost 70 different hands to reach the final product!
Q. Could you tell me about the Jaipur Rugs Foundation?
A. My father, NK Chaudhary, created the JRF in 2004 as a non-profit organization to support the social mission of Jaipur Rugs. Today, the JRF offers literacy, financial education, healthcare clinics and women’s leadership courses to thousands of rug artisans across hundreds of villages in India. The foundation is working towards expanding globally to eventually help support artisans around the world.
