Nain

Near the border of the central desert and along the road from Esfahan to Yazd is the city of Nain, famous for its fabulous and splendid rugs. Many years ago the Aba (sleeveless cloak), was finely woven with camel's wool in Nain. Almost eighty years ago, the government of that time prohibited the wearing of old-fashioned clothes. The weavers of the Aba were forced to change their profession and they started a new enterprise. The result was the creation of the beautiful and fine rugs that gained world wide fame both in Iran and abroad.

In the beginning, the designs were those of Bakhtiari and Yazd carpets, and especially those of Esfahan. After the Second World War, specific and determined patterns were made which were gathered from the whole collection of carpet designs in Iran. One of the special features of Nain carpets is the insistence of the dyers to use cool colours. Their preference is white, dark blue, light blue, beige and sometimes red. The dimension of the Nain rugs vary from the smallest sizes (Poshti)up to larger sizes. Warp and weft are made of cotton, the pile is made of wool, they normally use the silk around the motifs to make the design outstanding. The designs often used in Nain carpets are overall Shah-Abbasi animal with multiple antlers, multiple armlets, (Bazu-bandi), Shah-Abbasi medallion and corner. The weave varies between fine and extremely fine, 3.000 - 10.000 Senneh knots per sq. dm. To determine the fineness of Nain rugs the terms six ply (shesh-la) and nine ply (noh-la) are often used. It's correct to explain that whenever one of the warps of a carpet is named noh-la. If two of the strings get separated, then the term shesh-la is used. Shesh-la is much finer than noh-la.