Named “The Studio,” the industry-leading workshop of STEP Partner Beni Rugs offers a glimpse at a possible future for handmade carpets that is sustainable, ethical, and bright. Co-founder Robert Wright told STEP about how their view of heritage craft as a living concept guides their ongoing mission to establish better working environments and elevate the craft to its highest form.
On the Outskirts of Marrakech
Driving into Tameslouht, a small village on the outskirts of Marrakech, it’d be hard to anticipate what’s waiting in a tucked-away building off a quiet side street. Beyond a little front garden is Beni Rugs’s one-of-a-kind facility—dubbed The Studio—which unites a 50-loom weaving workshop, a design office, a washing facility, a showroom, and a shipping floor all under one roof (and a courtyard). The Studio is more than that, though; it is a model of fair trade working, offering a glimpse at a possible future for handmade carpets that is sustainable, ethical, and bright.
Beni Rugs, a STEP Certified Partner since 2022, was founded by Robert Wright and Tiberio Lobo-Navia in 2017 after the duo grew fascinated by the beauty and rich history of traditional Moroccan handmade rugs—particularly Beni Ouirains. While Morocco is known for producing a variety of rug types, there are two principal styles: light flatweaves and coarser high piles. Beni Ouirains fall into the latter category, with thick, shaggy piles typically decorated with geometric patterns and designs. The origin of these rugs is similar to other Moroccan handweaving traditions, dating back several centuries to the Amazigh (Berber) peoples and other nomadic indigenous communities from across the country’s arid desert terrain to high-altitude mountain ranges. It wasn’t until the 1970s and ’80s that handmade carpet production really began to expand out from rural villages into more formalized workshops in central urban areas.
The formalized workshops came with certain benefits, such as more consistent work; however, they are not always accessible to many workers nor do they necessarily translate into fair pay, a safe workplace, or adequate training. Beni Rugs, for its part, combats all of these issues and more. “The intention of the Studio was for it to reflect a core belief of Beni—which is that vibrancy, magic, and innovation happen when contemporary culture meets heritage craft,” Wright told STEP. “There’s an optimistic belief in connection underpinning the space … Normally, the weavers of Moroccan rugs exist at the bottom of a long supply chain, and here the goal was to provide a central stage for them, both in terms of physical visibility and transparency, but also in terms of professionalizing the craft and treating it like any other career.”
“The intention of the Studio was for it to reflect a core belief of Beni—which is that vibrancy, magic, and innovation happen when contemporary culture meets heritage craft.”
—Robert Wright, Co-Founder of Beni Rugs
Respecting Workers Today for a Better Tomorrow
Weavers at Beni Rugs are resourced with a host of services and benefits that remove the everyday obstacles from the workday. For those living outside Tameslothe, it begins with daily transportation from their respective villages, such as Tiwili, Douar Shib, Sidi Zouine, and Marrakech. As Afaf Chouhaidi, Beni Rugs’s Studio Director of Operations, explained this is to ensure “they can come to and from work safely without any challenges;” continuing “sometimes the only way to get to work or into the city is by catching a ride with a stranger or walking to the nearest bus stop, which can be 5 to 10 kilometers away.”
At the workshop itself, the weavers have access to their own fully equipped kitchen, where they can prepare their lunches. Many of them also use this as a prayer space, outside of dining hours. As the workday nears its close, it is common to find the local weavers’ children sitting in the courtyard doing their homework. Beni Rugs invites its weavers to bring their children during these hours for the simple reason of removing the stress of having to find after-school care. The day ends with around 15 to 20 minutes of paid time to clean their stations and organize their areas so that the next day they can come into a clean and tidy workplace. Those requiring transport are transported to their home village.
“Treating women with respect, paying decent salaries, and providing good working conditions will change the image of this industry, attract young people and help the tradition survive.”
—Beni Rugs Weaver
Thoughtfully Evolving Tradition
These little gestures to ease the daily workday are important; however, they are, in actuality, only supplements to the feature that attracts Beni Rugs’s weavers most: salaried roles that allow them to earn two-to-four times more than the average Moroccan weaver. “We believe that it’s important to view heritage craft as a living concept—and that thoughtfully evolving it can result in a positive impact.” Wright explained. “Underpinning our salary strategy was the belief that everyone wants to improve, learn, grow, and change for the better, so a tiered structure in which our team earns more as their skills improve was the foundation.”
As Beni’s outlook suggests, paying a living salary is not only about doing the “right thing” in the short term, it is also essential to thinking holistically and sustainably about the future of weaving. One of the weavers at Beni Rugs that we spoke with put it simply: “Treating women with respect, paying decent salaries, and providing good working conditions will change the image of this industry, attract young people and help the tradition survive.” In other words, without adequate pay and fair treatment, weavers will continue to seek employment elsewhere, increasing the weaver shortage even further.
Speaking with Elizabeth Segran for a 2023 feature on Beni Rugs for Fast Company, STEP Director Reto Aschwanden noted how, beyond the freedoms provided by reliable employment itself, Beni’s model offers the weavers another form of freedom as well: “What’s so remarkable is that the company has built such strong trust in this community that families are willing to let their wives, sisters, and daughters travel to work there,” said Aschwanden. “Some women are eager to leave the home, and this model allows them to do just that. They can meet new people, learn about life in other countries. This opens the world to them.”
“Some women are eager to leave the home, and this model allows them to do just that. They can meet new people, learn about life in other countries. This opens the world to them.”
—Reto Aschwanden, Managing Director, Label STEP
An Ongoing Mission to Create Better Working Conditions and Better Rugs
A visit to the Studio would not be complete without a walk through the courtyard, where 20-plus carpets of various shapes, sizes, and patterns hang from wood framed structures. Just as the history and tradition of weaving in Morocco dates back centuries, so too does the knowledge on the correct method for washing the high pile rugs. It took the Beni team a great deal of time, experimentation, and support from locals to understand the intricacies of how to perform it. Wright explained how, even though it had its challenges, the decision to bring the washing process in house was a natural evolution of their internal mission to “constantly seek opportunities to improve quality, efficiency, and working conditions.” It allows them to continually “search together for better and better ways to create the ultimate rug.”
In broad strokes, the washing process begins with burning the rugs, something Chouhaidi noted is “usually quite unexpected for visitors.” The burning helps to even out the pile and open up the ends of the fibers. Following this, the rugs are soaked with water and shampoo before being washed with a metal rake until the yarn opens up and begins to soften. The shampooing process is repeated two or three times, depending on the rug’s density, and then the rug is dried in the hot Moroccan sun for about a week. Due to the large quantity of water that is required to properly wash a high pile rug, Beni began to recapture water used to wash the rugs in order to minimize their environmental impact. The recaptured water is then recycled for purposes like watering that lush garden out front.
Elevating Craft to its Highest Form
For all of its industry-leading approaches and facilities, Beni Rugs isn’t done yet: “To us, a spirited approach to tradition means that innovation and creativity are paramount,” said Wright. “Our goal is to continue to elevate craft to its highest art form. To do that, we dig deep into the past, while also introducing new ideas, new constructions, new materials. It’s all in the name of challenging pre-existing ideas about what a rug made in Morocco looks like, while crafting beautiful objects that give a sense of place to our client’s homes.”
Photography by William Jess Laird
Up Next: Read about how Morocco is working to remodel its artisanal sector for the international market.
