How Jaipur Rugs and Obeetee Carpets are making Indian carpets a global phenomenon

The Manchaha Collection is one of carpet maker Jaipur Rugs’ most popular collections. As the name ‘manchaha’ suggests, it allows weavers to weave designs from their imagination. From local folklores to depicting their first flying experience or even popular Rajasthani delicacies such as the shakarpara, the weavers are given a free hand to weave whatever they feel like. Priced anywhere between ₹1.5 lakh and ₹12 lakh, these hand-knotted carpets are sold the world over. A variant of Manchaha, is Freedom Manchaha, which is woven by prisoners across five prisons in Rajasthan.

“There is more fantasy than reality in Freedom Manchaha,” explains Yogesh Chaudhary, director, Jaipur Rugs. “One of the prisoners depicted his three-year daughter on a beach with balloons, because it was his dream to take his daughter to a beach. Another prisoner had woven a plain carpet with a window in the centre. He said that’s what he sees the entire day, so he chose to weave a window.”

The point, the owner of the family-run carpet brand is trying to make is that India is no longer a contract manufacturer of home furnishings, especially carpets. When his father Nand Kishore Chaudhary started the business back in 1978, global designers looked at India as a contract manufacturing hub. They would give their own designs which the weavers of Rajasthan would painstakingly weave. The Indian carpet weavers were unsung heroes. Chaudhary says over the last decade, the tide has turned and global brands are increasingly appreciating Indian designs. “The biggest differentiator in my business is design. Earlier the perception was that design expertise was only with the Europeans; I see that changing really fast.”

He cites an example of his early interactions with Italian designer Matteo Cibic almost a decade ago, for whom Jaipur Rugs didn’t want to make as per their design sensibilities and instead offered him Indian designs with a modern, contemporary twist. “We did a collection called Jaipur Wunderkammer, which was inspired by the city of Jaipur. So, the pink colour, the maharajas, people with twirling moustaches and even monkeys. The collection was completely inspired by the city of Jaipur.” Over the years, the carpet brand from India has been designing for the likes of Fendi, Balenciaga, Chanel, Prada and many more. Jaipur Rugs has stores in Milan, London, Singapore, Shanghai and Dubai.

Dating back to the Mughal period

Welcome to the world of Indian handmade carpets. According to an IBEF report, the country is the largest producer and exporter of handmade carpets in the world. Carpets from India are known for its rich craftsmanship and design diversity, and it produces a wide range of carpets—including hand-knotted, tufted, and flat-weave styles, made from materials such as wool, silk, cotton, and jute. In FY26, India exported hand-made carpets worth $1,459.2 million.

Carpet weaving in India was introduced in the 16th century during the Mughal period, and Indian carpets are known for their eco-friendliness, subtle elegance, excellent designs, superior quality, and vibrant colour craftsmanship. The report says that the labour-intensive industry provides employment to over 2 million workers/ artisans, especially women directly or indirectly in rural areas.

The foundation of any luxury brand is its legacy, its culture and its history of craftsmanship. And India has all the three ingredients in abundance. Where it lost out was its commodity mindset. Brand building was never a priority. According to Rudra Chatterjee, chairman, Obeetee Carpets, India’s luxury heritage is now coming to the forefront not just because more Indians are consuming luxury, but also because consumers worldwide want to know about the making of the luxury bag or perfume or carpet for which they are paying a fortune.

“There was a period when most luxury brands would not talk about the making. They would talk about the designer, about things that happened in their own country. They never spoke about the process of making. Technology has become a great leveller. Because now with the QR code, you can find out everything about a product. The time of hiding the maker is over,” says Chatterjee.

“When you buy an Obetee carpet, you look at the knot, which is called the Persian knot, which evolved in India during Mughal rule. We operate in Banaras, we use materials and skills from the Banarasi weaver. All those stories are something that luxury consumers in the West want to know and talk about,” he adds.

According to Chatterjee, 95% of the world’s weavers/craftspeople are from India, and that’s not because of India's population, but because of India's craft tradition. “Only 5% are the rest of the world. And, from that 5% it is mainly in Japan, Turkey, France and Italy. Now, what Japan and France have done really well is that whether it is stitching bags or making pots, they have positioned their handcrafted legacy as luxury. The reason the French or Italian luxury moment has evolved and sustained is because Italian and French people bought that luxury. But we have not yet done that. It is important for our luxury companies to bring the voice of the craftspeople, bring the authentic materials being used and the quality to the forefront.”

Obeetee, which began life in 1920 as Oakley, Bowden & Taylor in Mirzapur, has carpeted Parliament House and Rashtrapati Bhavan. Ever since Chatterjee has been steering the business, he has made sure to promote Indian designs. His first design collaboration was with designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee in 2016. Thereafter he has collaborated with the likes of Tarun Tahiliani, J.J. Valaya and Shantnu & Nikhil, amongst others. “Before we opened our retail store, we took our carpets to ABC Carpet & Home, and I remember Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel buy one of the Tarun carpets.”

Chatterjee’s criteria of designer collaboration was to get them to use motifs from the place he/she hails from. “I wanted to promote Bengali motives through Sabyasachi and Punjabi motives by J.J. Valaya and Tarun did chikankari from UP,” he explains. Apart from India, Obeetee has stores in New York, London and Dubai. Around 80% of its revenue still comes from B2B sales, but the big difference today is—the recognition of skills that come from the place where the object comes from. But as Indian craftsmanship is gaining recognition, Chatterjee says that his B2C business is also growing faster than he had expected.