HIGH POINT MARKET: Abu Rugs and Home begins selling to retailers
Company will have two High Point showrooms
Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, April 23, 2009
HIGH POINT —
 Seville is one of the rugs in Abu Handcrafted Rugs’ new European Passages collection. It retails for about $2,099 in an 8-by-10 size. |
After serving interiors designers and architects for 21 years, high-end area rug manufacturer Abu Rugs and Home is branching out to include retailers among its clientele.
Company owner and founder Abu-Bakr Khan has created a new division, Abu Handcrafted Rugs, which he will introduce at the High Point Market, which opens Saturday.
He said he hopes to appeal to mainstream retailers with some upscale, hand-crafted rugs and also some special assortment products that can retail at a more mid-level price points.
"I've always sourced all of my rugs from overseas and sold them directly to architects and designers," he said. "But now I've taken our top-notch pieces that have traditionally been our most popular sellers and started opening them up to the trade and expanding their reach into retail stores and larger design houses nationally."
While Abu Rugs and Home typically shows its wares to customers at its headquarters in Jamestown just outside High Point, now the company has leased two temporary showrooms - Showplace, space 1300, for its more midpriced items and Market Square, space G-1332, for the high-end pieces.
At the high end, Abu Handcrafted Rugs has two new collections. European Passages is an all-wool grouping of hand-carved pieces featuring designs inspired by European architecture. The rugs are designed and made at Abu's India facility and are set to retail for $2,200 to $2,400 in an 8-by-10 size. The second collection, Arabian Passages, consists of rugs made in high knot-per-square-inch constructions and traditional patterns but in updated palettes. Retail pricing ranges from $4,000 to $4,900 for an 8-by-10.
The Showplace display will offer rugs priced to retail from $800 to $3,000. These include 16- to 300-knots-per-square-inch varieties from India, Pakistan and Nepal.
In March, the company opened its second Abu Rugs and Home retail unit, in McLean, Va. The company's original store is at its headquarters.
Note: A version of this story originally appeared in Home Textiles Today, a sister publication of Furniture/Today.
More High Point Market coverage
-
Maitland-Smith launches first licensed line
Oct 24, 2011 -
High Point Market Fall 2008: Rug vendors press value
Oct 23, 2008 -
Dorya Interiors to show at High Point Market
Mar 2, 2010
Specialty retailer LoveSac introduces new store design
Kincaid Furniture honors Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter for Habitat work
Omnia Furniture ends relationship with Kathy Ireland Worldwide
Belfort Furniture, Lawrance Furniture are NHFA Retailers of Year
Singapore furniture show expecting increased turnout
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
