Kath had no interest in following in their footsteps. “Never ever,” he says.
“I just wanted to run away.”
And so he did, leaving his native Bochum, Germany for far-flung locales
until the world of rugs pulled him back. “I was stranded here in Kathmandu,
coming back from India after a couple of years living a wild hippie life,” he
says. Too broke to make it home, Kath had the good fortune to run into an
acquaintance on the street – a supplier who used to sell Persian rugs to Kath’s
grandfather and who just happened to be looking for someone to establish
a quality control system for his operations in Kathmandu.
The next step in Kath’s education occurred when his then-mentor sent him
to scope out opportunities in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. “It was the beginning
of the nineties,” Kath recalls. “He didn’t want me to weave carpets right away,
just to check on the situation. ‘Is there wool? Can we buy silk? Is there still
a traditional weaving technique available?’ All these things.”
When Kath’s mentor retired, Kath took over his operations. For the first
couple of years, he continued in the model his mentor had established, but, he
reflects, it wasn’t working. “Carpets were totally out when I started,” he says.
“Nobody wanted to buy carpets. All my savings went down the drain.” He
realized that not only was he failing, but he was failing at something he swore
he’d never do. He resolved that if he was going to go bust, at least he should do
it while making the kind of rugs he wanted to make. “Only when I started to
listen to myself did I come up with a successful collection.”
By making designs that suited his personal tastes – often traditional pat-
terns reinvigorated by unorthodox colour combinations or striking textural
effects – he began to turn the tide. A couple of years later, in 1997, he officially064 _ _MAR/APR 2019
Afghanistan, Turkey to buy traditional carpets to import back to Europe.
I inhaled that. And I love it. But [these arts] are dying. So I search, proactively,
for ways to make these techniques and patterns survive for our century. I use
them as a surface, and project a contemporary pattern on top of it.”
Why not mechanize? Jan Kath has, but not in Nepal. “Besides these tra-
ditional weaving techniques, we are heavily engaged in modern produc-
tion methods, such as hand-tufting, but we’re doing it in Thailand,” Kath
explains. With lead times so crucial to large commercial projects, he says, it
was necessary to turn to hand- and machine-tufting. “I’ve spent months, if
not years, on tufting looms, trying to translate our hand-knotting signature
into a tufted product.”
Although hand-weaving rugs the artisanal, Nepalese way may take a
bit longer, it also offers, as evidenced by the super-sized piece bound for
Toronto, the flexibility to incorporate any technique and achieve any effect
at any scale. “Each knot is like a pixel. Hand-weaving allows us to play with
each pixel. And by controlling a single pixel, we can replicate whatever we
want.” Hand-working also gives artisans absolute control over quality and
imparts the signature finish that makes each rug a true work of art. “All our
raw materials are procured naturally, based on old styles,” Kath says. “We
still use only hand-spun wool, nettle and silk, which imparts a certain spirit
to our carpets – a certain vibration.”
Given that his career in the industry officially began in quality control,
it’s no wonder that Kath pays such obsessive attention to even the subtlest
effects that different weaves or materials can achieve. Still, he came to
rugs the long way around. Despite the fact that his family was in the trade,
Although hand-weaving rugs the artisanal,
Nepalese way may take a bit longer, it also offers
the flexibility to incorporate any technique
and achieve any effect at any scale