Nain Rug Origins & Description Guide

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View all our fine Nain rugs.

Nain is a town 150km to the east of Isfahan in central Iran; it is relatively new to the carpet world compared to ancient weaving centres such as Kashan, Isfahan and Yazd. Although it started out producing Isfahan carpets, in the mid 1930s Nain began developing its own style. Very fine and precise designs were created due to the high quality of the workshops in the area. Fathollah Habibian (1903-1995) ran one of the most famous Na'in workshops and is widely regarded as 'the father of Nain rugs'. Producing fine carpets with his brother Mohammed since his school days Fathollah Habibian is responsible for the design and weaving of some of the world's finest Nains.

Fathollah Habibian (1903-1995)

Nain rugs usually have a cotton foundation with a very soft wool or wool & silk pile. The majority of Nain rugs have at least some silk detail. Quality is measured not only in knots per square inch (KPSI) which averages about 300 but also in LAA. LAA is a Farsi term referring to the number of threads that make up each fringe. A Nain with a LAA of 9 is considered a good quality rug (yet is the lowest quality of true Nains) while a LAA of 4 the best. LAA is related to KPSI as it allows tighter knotting.

We recently sent a fine quality Nain rug to be repaired. The owner of the rug had rolled the Nain to store it and water and dampness unfortunately got into the part which was touching the ground. This is a major restoration project and we will be showing updates of the repair work on our Persian rug repair page.

View all our fine Nain rugs.