Nourison

-- Home Textiles Today, 2/26/2001 12:00:00 AM

Saddlebrook, NJ

Less than 10 percent of Nourison's rugs are made domestically in Georgia. Only the Persian Empire Collection-room-size area rugs donning traditional Oriental and Persian designs-has been made for the past two years by Shaw Rugs for Nourison.

The bulk of Nourison's products are hand-knotted, hand-tufted and flat woven area rugs from China and India, as well as machinemades from China and Belgium.

"The handmade area rug business is historically an import business. It's entire history and development never became an indigenous American industry," Ed Vairo, director of creative marketing. "The goods are made overseas, and that's where you have to go if you want to get them."

What Vairo insists differentiates area rug importers from each other is "design and fabrication."

To accomplish that, Vairo said, Nourison has created long-standing relationships with overseas factories to offer "not only competitive price points but also use the culture and history of the industry with our advanced technologies to produce something new, fresh and ahead of the curve."