Textile designer Aelfie Oudghiri flung open the door to her studio, revealing a cozy, colorful explosion of fabric—and her very pregnant belly. Happy to hang with us just days before her due date, the pragmatic 28-year-old pointed to the place where she plans to put a crib: “She’ll be my intern,” she says of her soon-to-be-born daughter.
It's only been two years since she started designing rugs, but, today, Oudghiri she sits comfortably at a wood desk surrounded by piles of her designs—from pared-down wool and cotton floor coverings accented with flat, geometric patterns to shaggy sheepskins hand-dyed in a rainbow of colors—along with the rolled-up vintage rugs sourced from Morocco, India, and Turkey that inspired them.
It's a busy, vibrant scene, one that reflects Oudghiri's journey as much as her rugs. Textiles allow the designer, who is of Turkish, Russian, and British descent, to funnel all of her loves––family, ethnic heritage, penchant for Evil Eyes––into one tangible object. While incessantly fiddling with scissors, beads, or the embroidered swatches strewn about her desk, Oudghiri riffed on color, the magic of credit cards, and getting high on tea.
TIFFANY JOW: How did you get into rugs?
AELFIE OUDGHIRI: When I was 17, I got a credit card in the mail. It was before the recession, a time when people gave out a lot of credit, and they offered me a card with a $3,000 credit. I went on a family vacation to Turkey and, like, maxed it out on rugs.
Going to Turkey and buying loads of rugs seems pretty random.
I didn’t know that was going to happen, either! There was something really appealing about how every single piece was one-of-a-kind, how every piece had a story, and how there’s this whole sales dance that was completely new to me. It was slow, and it was also pushy, and I discovered I really like negotiating. And I also like tea—they get you all hyped up on the tea before the bartering gets underway. There’s a whole theatrical element to [rug sales] that I just can’t do right now because I'm pregnant: pulling out the rugs, making tea, talking about the history of all the pieces.
I also felt like I was connecting with something about my heritage. Growing up, my mom always had weird things around the house that other families didn’t have, like an Evil Eye or a couple too many rugs on the ground. Buying rugs in Turkey, it kind of clicked for me—I understood what that was all about.
You didn’t start designing rugs until 2012. What were you doing before then?
I worked in fashion styling, fashion production, took night classes at Hunter College, and had an existential meltdown—I hated what I was doing. I thought I should become a doctor and enrolled in med school. Then I had another existential meltdown, and thought I should study physics. I got into a program at Columbia but ended up studying religion because I didn’t want to do the math requirement. Religion is similar to physics—it’s getting at the same questions but answering them in a different way. While at Columbia, I was at a dinner party, and my parents asked me what I was planning to do with my life. I said, ‘I am going to be a rug dealer!’ I was really drunk, but I was also being really honest.
So you committed yourself to textiles, a tradition that has an incredibly rich history. How did you learn about that?
My stepmom’s mom’s best friend is a wonderful 90-something-year-old collector called Valerie Justin. She had this big warehouse full of rugs and textiles, wrote a book on flat-woven rugs, and had a s
It's only been two years since she started designing rugs, but, today, Oudghiri she sits comfortably at a wood desk surrounded by piles of her designs—from pared-down wool and cotton floor coverings accented with flat, geometric patterns to shaggy sheepskins hand-dyed in a rainbow of colors—along with the rolled-up vintage rugs sourced from Morocco, India, and Turkey that inspired them.
It's a busy, vibrant scene, one that reflects Oudghiri's journey as much as her rugs. Textiles allow the designer, who is of Turkish, Russian, and British descent, to funnel all of her loves––family, ethnic heritage, penchant for Evil Eyes––into one tangible object. While incessantly fiddling with scissors, beads, or the embroidered swatches strewn about her desk, Oudghiri riffed on color, the magic of credit cards, and getting high on tea.
TIFFANY JOW: How did you get into rugs?
AELFIE OUDGHIRI: When I was 17, I got a credit card in the mail. It was before the recession, a time when people gave out a lot of credit, and they offered me a card with a $3,000 credit. I went on a family vacation to Turkey and, like, maxed it out on rugs.
Going to Turkey and buying loads of rugs seems pretty random.
I didn’t know that was going to happen, either! There was something really appealing about how every single piece was one-of-a-kind, how every piece had a story, and how there’s this whole sales dance that was completely new to me. It was slow, and it was also pushy, and I discovered I really like negotiating. And I also like tea—they get you all hyped up on the tea before the bartering gets underway. There’s a whole theatrical element to [rug sales] that I just can’t do right now because I'm pregnant: pulling out the rugs, making tea, talking about the history of all the pieces.
I also felt like I was connecting with something about my heritage. Growing up, my mom always had weird things around the house that other families didn’t have, like an Evil Eye or a couple too many rugs on the ground. Buying rugs in Turkey, it kind of clicked for me—I understood what that was all about.
You didn’t start designing rugs until 2012. What were you doing before then?
I worked in fashion styling, fashion production, took night classes at Hunter College, and had an existential meltdown—I hated what I was doing. I thought I should become a doctor and enrolled in med school. Then I had another existential meltdown, and thought I should study physics. I got into a program at Columbia but ended up studying religion because I didn’t want to do the math requirement. Religion is similar to physics—it’s getting at the same questions but answering them in a different way. While at Columbia, I was at a dinner party, and my parents asked me what I was planning to do with my life. I said, ‘I am going to be a rug dealer!’ I was really drunk, but I was also being really honest.
So you committed yourself to textiles, a tradition that has an incredibly rich history. How did you learn about that?
My stepmom’s mom’s best friend is a wonderful 90-something-year-old collector called Valerie Justin. She had this big warehouse full of rugs and textiles, wrote a book on flat-woven rugs, and had a s