Company profile

Designercarpets Drechsle stands for high quality handmade carpets. Each carpet is commissioned in joint development, without any mass production. Designercarpets Drechsle produces carpets and kilims for private individuals, hotels, public spaces, shipyards and individual projects in close cooperation with international designers and architectural offices. Moreover, Designercarpets Drechsle holds the official license for timeless carpet designs from Verner Panton, Gertrud Arndt/Bauhaus, Carmen Stallbaumer and many more international designers.

Production sites are located in the countries of the Orient and the Far East. The main production site is in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Cooperation is based to a equal degree on the strengths of the respective partners and on long-term collaboration. Personal contact is very important; constant discussions, joint developments and friendships form the basis of the craftmanship partnerships that started over 30 years ago. 

The third generation family business is based in the "Dreiländereck" area of southern Germany (Lörrach, Basel, Mulhouse). The passion for traditional craftsmanship combined with innovative designs and the high quality standards unites all employees of Designercarpets.

HISTORY

Magdalena Drechsle, the mother of the current CEO Stefan Drechsle, founded the company in 1949 in the German city of Lörrach, near the German-Swiss border. What had initially started as a family furniture business evolved during the late 1960s into a specialty store and manufacturing center for traditional hand-knotted oriental rugs. Originally imported from third party suppliers, DESIGNERCARPETS started its own manufacturing facility in Kathmandu in 1983, enabling the company to offer special customized and bespoke luxury rugs. “Our decision to do this in Nepal was decidedly motivated by striving for the highest quality of rugs manufactured only there,” CEO Stefan Drechsle explains.

Once that DESIGNERCARPETS established its own manufacturing proficiencies, it was a logical next step in the late 1990s to start manufacturing carpets based on designs created by worldwide renowned designers. In 1999 Drechsle made a Miró-style carpet by and for the Swedish actor, director and artist Lasse Åberg. This carpet was among the items displayed at a local vernissage, where Drechsle was introduced to Marianne Panton, Verner Panton’s widow. They both agreed that Verner Panton’s rug designs deserved to be revived. Since 1999 DESIGNERCARPETS is officially licensed to produce the Verner Panton rugs. This marked the beginning of a new orientation and the birth of DESIGNERCARPETS. Stefan Drechsle has closely collaborated with internationally renowned designers ever since. Pierre Paulin, Karim Rashid, Patrick Norguet and Arik Levy are a few of the creators who have designed carpets for DESIGNERCARPETS. With Annique Drechsle joining in 2023, the company enters its third generation. 

PRODUCTION

DESIGNERCARPETS’ main manufacturing site is in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, where the rugs are manufactured. “This particular local style of rug knotting entails a very traditional and thorough manufacturing technique. Centuries-old expertise in traditional manufacturing skills is uniquely combined here with exclusive, high-quality materials and a unique flexibility with regard to colors, patterns, shapes and dimensions,” Drechsle states. Other manufactories are located in Morocco, Portugal and India.

The local family manufacturing business is strongly committed to respectful and mindful dealings with coworkers. “That’s why we pay strict attention to the working conditions at our ateliers,” Stefan Drechsle emphasizes. “We guarantee that there is absolutely no child labor in our facilities!” Drechsle personally travels to the manufacturing yards several times each year to personally monitor the quality of the rugs, the sustainability and the working conditions onsite, so he can honestly state that “the manufacturing process is fully transparent!”. The step-label membership supports Designercarpets with a third party monitoring of social standards and continuous improvement. 

COLLECTIONS

Alongside numerous innovative collections by celebrated designers such as Verner Panton, Gertrud Arndt, Carmen Stallbaumer, D-Range and Studio Charlie, as well as artists’ carpets by Vassily Kandinsky and Joan Hernández Pijuan, the company also offers carpets and kilims in customized sizes, shapes and designs.

Exclusive and customized rugs for the retail stores of big fashion brands (Giorgio Armani), for luxurious hotels (e.g. Armani Hotels in Milan and Dubai) and yachts, as well as for private individuals such as Hollywood actors and members of the royal family in Kuwait round out DESIGNERCARPETS’ portfolio. Beginning 2016 the manufacture in Kathmandu has started to produce the hand knotted carpets for Fendi Casa, Bentley Casa, Baccarat and Trussardi Casa.

ARMANI/CASA RUGS COLLECTION

The ARMANI/CASA Rugs Collection presents exclusive carpets. Art and craftsmanship play important roles and are intimately interconnected in collections from ARMANI/CASA. DESIGNERCARPETS shares this approach. Its rugs and kilims from Nepal are skillfully hand-knotted and woven by traditional artisanal methods, thus creating elaborate, abstract patterns in beautiful, natural hues. Thanks to the excellence of the handcraftsmanship, the results are unique masterpieces, which are indeed comparable to works of art.

DESIGNERCARPETS has manufactured the rugs for the ARMANI/CASA collections worldwide since 2003 and exclusively as an authorized licensee from 2012 to 2017. When Armani visited the company’s stand at the Cologne Furniture Fair in 2003, he was immediately convinced by the special quality and visionary new materials at that time, such as hemp and nettle. The company accordingly also manufactured carpets for Armani’s fashion stores and hotels, as well as for Giorgio Armani’s private projects.

DESIGNERCARPETS closely collaborates with VitraHaus since the opening in 2010. Before that date the rug company worked on different Vitra’s projects like the Alexander Girard rug.

SHOWROOM

DESIGNERCARPETS’s showroom is located in Lörrach, Germany near the Swiss border and in close proximity to Vitra. Verner Panton rugs are displayed in VitraHaus on the Vitra campus, along with other rugs such as kilims for Vitra’s Suita sofa by Antonio Citterio: this unique hand-woven flat weave from northern Persia was created exclusively for the exhibition in VitraHaus.

APPRAISER

Stefan Drechsle is an accredited appraiser and an appointed expert for oriental and flat-weave rugs from the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Hochrhein-Bodensee. He writes appraisals for private individuals and insurance companies, performs structural and laboratory analyses to identify materials and coloring agents, teaches seminars and delivers lectures for advanced training. The production of DESIGNERCARPETS’s carpets necessarily benefits from Drechsle’s profound expertise and experience, which he acquired and deepened through decades of involvement with carpets and rugs.

AWARDS

CARPET DESIGN AWARD 2013 – Com Un Camp Llaurat, winner “Best Modern Design Deluxe”: DESIGNERCARPETS won the “Best Modern Design Deluxe” award for the Com Un Camp Llaurat carpet at the Domotex international carpet fair in Hannover. Produced in a limited special edition of 150 carpets, Com Un Camp Llaurat is a tribute to the artist Joan Hernández Pijuan