Trend #Fail: Moroccan Rugs

If you haven’t noticed, so-called Moroccan rugs are everywhere right now: shaggy and ivory, with a diamond grid pattern in on-trend gray. But why? No, really. WHY??

We’d guess that once upon a time, some style-setting tastemaker traveled to Marrakesh and brought one home, figuring it would imbue her place with the magic and spice of the souk. Her friends loved it. “Oh, that?! I got that in Mo-ro-cco,” she’d coo, giving off a sense of globetrotter cool. It’s purported that major design influencers—from Charles and Ray Eames to Frank Lloyd Wright—followed suit, installing the magical carpets in their interiors. The rest is history.

Now, everrrrrybody’s selling Moroccan rugs. West Elm, Restoration Hardware, even Target. But the vast majority aren’t actually Moroccan, or even wool. They’ve been mass-marketized beyond recognition. Take Walmart’s version, which is made—in America, surprisingly—of 100% Olefin (so glam! So…synthetic). You can get an 8’ x 10’ of that for just $159.96. Overstock even sells a polypropylene stunner.

To the untrained eye, all of these versions will still look cool in your #floorcore shots. But nothing produced on such great scale can retain its original beauty and meaning. Centuries ago, Berber tribes wove thick-pile rugs for warmth underfoot in the cool Atlas Mountains. Each one was imbued with symbolism: crosshatching for protection, diamonds for deflecting the Evil Eye. But all that meaning has been lost in our throwaway culture, where our rugs last about as long as most presidential candidates. Something to keep in mind, the next time the bandwagon rolls around.