Oriental Weavers has racked up a lot of firsts, including the first polypropylene Wilton woven machine made rug in a Persian design. I have one.
They have now introduced an entry level price point wool Persian village design cross woven on an adapted gripper axminster machine. At the moment I know of just 6 machine woven wool rug lines; one spool ax, 4 Wilton woven, and one side woven gripper ax. The hospitality industry depends on gripper axminster for high traffic installations.
The key words are “entry level wool”. The online business is driven by price. Consumers in “brick and mortar” buy “touch and feel”. The consumer has not given up on wool. Persian village design scatters are coming back—that is village designs look good in small sizes.
There are plenty of reasons why this product is a technical breakthrough plus it looks good, is shippable in a box, and is saleable. See the September issue of Rug News andDesign for details. And the entry level price point seems to be about $499 IMAP for the nominal 5×8, MSRP $999.