The Stories Behind the Stitch: Kilim

If you've ever looked closely at a piece from our Kilim collection, you’ll have noticed it carries more than just pattern. There’s rhythm in the repeat, certainly, and geometry with real purpose, but beneath that, something else entirely. A quiet hum of history, woven into every line.

This is the first instalment of “The Stories Behind the Stitch”, where we explore the origins and influences behind some of our most cherished design names. We’re starting with Kilim, because it’s one of the oldest, and most misunderstood, textile traditions on the planet. It’s also a name that holds centuries of creative freedom, tribal storytelling, and, quite literally, threads of cultural identity.

So, let’s begin.

What is a Kilim, really?

In simple terms, a kilim is a flat-woven rug, made without the thick pile you’d find in more familiar carpets. But that modest description does it a terrible disservice. Kilims are design at its most elemental, just warp and weft, criss-crossed into bold, meaningful shapes.

They’ve been made for well over 1,500 years, across what we now call Anatolia (Turkey), Iran, the Caucasus, North Africa and Central Asia. And though each region brought its own flair, the intention was often the same: to make something functional, beautiful, and quietly symbolic.

Historically, kilims weren’t showpieces for palaces. They were everyday items, used to cover floors, hang on walls, wrap belongings, or mark ceremonial occasions. They were often woven by women, at home, with no formal training but an extraordinary eye. These weren’t just rugs. They were part of life.

The outsider art of the textile world

Here’s where it gets interesting, for much of the 20th century, kilims were considered second-class citizens in the world of fine textiles. Museums and collectors swooned over rich, knotted pile carpets, with their grandeur and their gilded provenance. Kilims, by comparison, were often dismissed as “ethnographic”, charming, perhaps, but not art.

Some were literally used as packing material for archaeological finds. Can you imagine?

Their flatness, fragility and humble purpose worked against them. They didn’t show up in the oil paintings of European elites. They weren’t traded as royal gifts. And their surviving examples, often worn or fragmentary, didn’t seem worth restoring.

But all that began to change in the 1970s, when a few visionary curators, collectors and writers began to see kilims not as poor cousins, but as bold expressions of design. Anthony Landreau’s landmark 1969 exhibition in Washington, followed by London’s “The Undiscovered Kilim” in 1977, kicked off a kind of quiet renaissance. Scholars started mapping out styles, motifs and techniques. Kilims began to earn their place on gallery walls, not underfoot.

Ancient threads, modern echoes

The earliest known kilims date back to the 4th century BCE, discovered in the frozen tombs of Pazyryk in Siberia’s Altai Mountains. That’s older than some written languages. And despite the millennia, their patterns bear a startling resemblance to the bold geometrics you still see in Anatolian weaving today.

This continuity isn’t a coincidence, its tradition passed down loom by loom, often orally or by memory. That’s partly why kilims are so hard to catalogue. The symbolism in many motifs is fluid, local and deeply personal. A lozenge might mean protection in one village, fertility in another. Sometimes, it’s simply decorative. And that’s part of the charm: kilims aren’t designed to be decoded; they’re made to be lived with.

Over time, designs would morph, not in great stylistic revolutions, but gradually. One weaver would tweak a shape here, another might elongate a motif there. Slowly, what began as a neighbour’s pattern became something new entirely. It’s the textile equivalent of oral storytelling, embroidered evolution.

The myth, the muddle and the meaning

Now, it wouldn’t be textile history without a bit of controversy. In the 20th century, some writers, most infamously James Mellaart, made wild claims about kilim symbolism, tying motifs back to prehistoric goddess worship and sacred totems. Romantic? Yes. True? Debatable at best, and often completely fabricated.

Modern scholars take a gentler, more grounded approach. While many kilim patterns do hold meaning, spiritual, tribal, protective, others are purely aesthetic. And that's perfectly fine. Like much vernacular art, the beauty of a kilim often lies in how it was made, not just what it means.

Why we love it

At Alexander Maverick, our Kilim design is not a replica of a particular rug. It’s a tribute, an echo of those bold, enduring forms. We’ve softened the edges, tweaked the rhythm, and chosen colours that feel at home in modern interiors. But the bones of the pattern, the structure, the symbolism, the soul, remain intact.

It’s a reminder that good design doesn’t always start in a sketchbook. Sometimes it starts in a village, on a loom, with someone who’s been watching their grandmother weave since childhood. Kilim is one of those designs. Strong, grounded, and full of quiet confidence.

So that’s the first in our “Stories Behind the Stitch”. From buried history to gallery walls, from Anatolian homes to your own, Kilim carries with it a remarkable journey, one we’re proud to celebrate in every metre we print.