Carpets

Lots of things are made in China -- toys, Boy Scout badges, socks, shock absorbers, chain saws, to name a few. But when the Chinese needed a carpet for Shanghai's international airport, they looked to the City of Industry, home of Bentley Prince Street, the largest commercial carpet manufacturer in California. Bentley Prince recently finished outfitting 100,000 square yards of the airport in bluish-gray modular carpeting made from recycled content with renewable energy.

Jorgen Evil Ekvoll and Can Sayinli's hand-woven silk rug -- a design called War, depicting a baby surrounded by bleeding bodies, hand grenades and guns -- sold for $60,000 at the Art Basel Miami Beach exhibition in December. Dan Golden's wry cartoons of cigarette-smoking canines, psycho-babbling infants and the Red Cross symbol with the tag line "Morphine Is the Best Medicine" on hand-tufted wool sell for $6,750 each at Eccola Imports in L.A.

NEW rugs fashioned by famous designers or sold in limited editions often are touted as investments, like fine art. But just as in that fickle field, it's hard to predict which rugs will appreciate in value. Contemporary rugs are a small part of the 20th century furnishings market, Peter Loughrey of Los Angeles Modern Auctions said.

Standing next to piles of exquisitely hand-woven Persian rugs, Hossein Ghaseminia is confident his rugs, which cost as much as $50,000, can fend off cheaper Asian rivals and withstand threatened U.S. sanctions. One of Iran's best-known exports, Persian carpets made from silk, wool and cotton are traditionally woven by women in villages who use natural dyes derived from plants to color them in rich hues where red, brown and cream dominate.

BEFORE my recent trip to India, I asked two rug importers in the U.S. about reputable carpet merchants in the places I planned to visit. One dodged my request altogether. The other tried to dissuade me from buying anything. "You would be wiser to buy in the U.S. from a merchant you trust," said an e-mail from John B. Gregorian, author of "Oriental Rugs of the Silk Route" and president of Arthur T. Gregorian Oriental Rugs, a store in Newton Lower Falls, Mass.

BELIEVE it or not, there is a case being made for using certain animal skins as rugs. They are gaining favor as floor decor to the dismay of those who believe neither hide nor hair of any animal should be used in the home by anyone other than its original owner. But interior designers and retailers say there is new acceptance of cowhide and sheepskin rugs, especially in exotic patterns, unusual colors and different shapes. "It's organic. People like the texture and feel of it.

A Turkish carpet in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art -- acquired as a circa-1600 work but disparaged by a New York rug dealer as a much later reproduction -- has emerged from a preliminary investigation with its authenticity intact but a later estimated date of creation. "We have no significant doubts about the carpet," said Nancy Thomas, deputy director of the museum. "But like a lot of acquisitions, it has gone under a microscope since it came here.

Here in the "Carpet Capital of the World," the large manufacturing plants that supply almost half the nation's carpet also pump out reams of wasted scraps that eventually wind up in landfills. Next month, the world's largest carpet maker will do something about the problem when it begins operating a one-of-a-kind power plant that will be fueled by the 16,000 tons of overruns, rejects and remnants it turns out every year. Shaw Industries Inc.

Only a few people in the North Carolina auction room paid much attention when bidding started on Lot 57, described sparingly in the catalog as an 18th century Turkish carpet expected to fetch $5,000 to $10,000. But that changed as the bids moved briskly past $50,000. Auctioneer Robert S. Brunk, surprised by how quickly his estimate had been passed, deftly kept the interested bidders in view, swinging from one to another. The price moved up in $10,000 increments.

Competition among dealers, museum curators and collectors has driven prices for the best Oriental carpets into the six and seven figures. "At the very top, supply is very limited, prices are very high, and if anything good comes to the market, it's usually bought privately without ever being seen," said Daniel Shaffer, executive editor of Hali magazine, the glossy, London-based bible for the trade.