For over a century, my family has been exporting hand-knotted rugs from India.S.N. Kapoor Exports began in 1916, and for most of that journey, almost 90% of what we produced was exported. That’s been the story of the Indian rug industry too — we’re one of the largest makers of handmade carpets globally, yet most […]
Running a legacy business has been a blessing for me. It comes with opportunity as well as with immense responsibility. At Understorey and S.N. Kapoor Exports, the people are the business.The craftsmen, artists, and weavers we work with – many of whom have been with us for decades are the backbone of everything we do. […]
Someone recently asked me:“Once a rug is in place, how do you actually take care of it?” It’s a practical question, but it also reveals something deeper. We’ve been trained to think of rugs as fragile luxury objects — something that needs constant attention or special treatment.The truth is quite the opposite. A well-made hand-knotted […]
Every rug we make at Understorey has a story.But this one felt personal. When my brother-in-law got married, Sanjana Kapoor and I wanted to make something extraordinary for them, something that would stay with them long after the wedding was over. There was a photograph of the two of them – beautifully captured, full of […]
Most people assume the hardest part of a hand-knotted rug is the weaving. For this project, the toughest phase came after the weaving was done. 1. The Rug Became a 2-Ton ChallengeOnce the rug was off the loom and washed, the weight crossed two tons.No one can manually lift something like that. We had to […]
20 Months. 14 Weavers. One Rug. Once the planning was done, the real test began. To execute a 14/14 pure silk rug of this size, we needed only the most skilled weavers in our entire network – the people who can maintain precision for months without a single lapse. 1. Selecting the TeamWe asked one […]
Every company has that one project that forces you to test everything you know. For us, it was a pair of rugs measuring 27.5 ft × 56 ft, in pure silk, woven in 14/14 quality — something very few weavers in the world can execute today. People assume the toughest part of a project like […]
The most inspiring thing I’ve learned from our weavers… Discipline. Hand-knotting isn’t a skill you pick up casually.It takes years of practice before you get good at it and even longer before you become great. Some of our master weavers tie hundreds of thousands of knots without even looking down.Their hands just know what to […]
In an age where design tools are getting smarter by the day, I keep going back to one question: What guided craftsmanship before technology existed? In the world of hand-knotted rugs, the answer is simple —the Map (Naksha). A Map is the blueprint of a rug.It tells the weaver exactly how the piece will evolve:▶️ […]
A few months ago, a long-time client from Texas visited our workshop.In the middle of a work conversation, he told me about his dog, his companion for over a decade, who had passed away recently. He showed me a photograph he loved.And he asked, quietly:“Can you make something lasting out of this?”We said yes. 📌 […]
