The rug company supporting Afghan women through craft - The Times
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Edmund Le Brun never intended to be a jeweller, a glass seller or a carpet dealer. The 6ft 6in Oxford graduate wanted to travel to remote places, like the mountains of western China (which he traversed during his gap year). He wanted to be challenged (which he was in spades when he and his friend Jonathan Rider made the first descent of the Oxus River by packraft). Most of all he wanted to go to Afghanistan.
It was the latter urge that set the path of his life — both personally and professionally. “I’d been to the countries all around Afghanistan, and was desperate to go,” he tells me from his home in east London. So, at the age of 21, he “wrote to all the NGOs working there. And thankfully Turquoise Mountain accepted me.”
The organisation, set up by Prince Charles, as he was then, and Rory Stewart in 2006, was busy restoring historic buildings and artisan workshops in a crumbling fort in Kabul when the young graduate arrived. For three years a ruined fort complex was Le Brun’s home — and the place where he met his wife and business partner, Flore de Taisne, who was consulting for the UN.
Unlike many expats in the city, who lived in high-security complexes, the couple led a relatively free life and on most weekends drove out of the city to explore. They discovered that the country was, according to Le Brun, “unbelievably beautiful”. He spent two months learning the local Dari language in “the incredibly green mountains of Bamiyan”, where they skied in the winter and where giant Buddha statues that the Taliban later destroyed were carved into the cliffs. And everywhere they went they came across craftsmen.
“What most people don’t know is that there are millions of craftspeople in Afghanistan,” says Le Brun, from jewellers, stonemasons, wood carvers and quilters to glass blowers and potters. Several NGOs are successful at helping to preserve ancient crafts, but there were very few places that connected the craftspeople to the market. So, almost as a hobby, the young couple set up a simple website, selling exquisite cufflinks they had designed. Within two weeks, he says, “we’d sold about £10,000 of cufflinks — which was a bit of a surprise. But it told us there was a market for quality products with a good story.” Soon they added glassware (made by the last traditional glass blowers in Afghanistan), then tableware, then jewellery — and finally carpets. And in 2016 Ishkar was born.
Ten years later their London-based company — named after a desert plant that, when burnt and added to glass, adds vibrancy to the colour — has become one of the capital’s most respected sources of fine rugs. Because each piece is hand-woven or hand-knotted using Ghazni wool, which has a lustrous sheen, it is a one-off. And because nearly all of the dyes used are plant-based, they take to the wool in a slightly uneven way, giving each piece a unique patina “that simply can’t be achieved by rug makers in, say, India, where colours are uniform,” Le Brun says.
Today almost half of Ishkar’s orders are from international interior designers such as Sibyl Colefax and Studio Ashby, who want made-to-order pieces for high-end clients that can be crafted from cotton, wool and silk in any colourways and sizes. Because, when the weavers are at work, they sit with a pattern on their lap showing exactly where each knot goes (“like a pixel on a screen”, Le Brun says), designs can be incredibly precise. Women can make traditional patterns that would have been woven hundreds of years ago, or abstract ones conceived by New York fashion designers.
Perhaps most importantly to the couple, Ishkar is helping Afghans to make a living. Since the Taliban took over again in 2021 (when the couple were away on honeymoon in Greece), women have been largely banned from working — except to make crafts. With the economy in crisis, many of Ishkar’s three hundred or so female carpet weavers (of the estimated million in the country) are their family’s only breadwinner. Thanks to the company’s partnership with the NGO Label Step, the business is ethically operated, with good working and living conditions, fair wages, no child labour and environmentally friendly production. And because the Taliban has restricted women’s movement, being able to gather to make crafts allows them a much needed opportunity not only to earn money but also “to have tea and gossip”, Le Brun says.
To celebrate their decade in business, the couple will be displaying their latest collection of ten rugs, each designed by world-leading artists and made in Afghanistan, at Ladbroke Hall in Notting Hill, west London, on November 6 and 7. The theme is “Togetherness”, celebrating connection across borders and cultures, and the exhibition includes designs by the French designer Louis Barthélemy, the Afghan-Canadian artist Hangama Amiri, ZHA (formerly Zaha Hadid Architects), Lulu Lytle for Soane Britain and the furniture designer Ilse Crawford. Ten per cent of sales will be donated to Emergency, which provides free healthcare to the people of Afghanistan.
When the couple lived in Kabul, Emergency was a lifesaver — literally — for the local population. “Whenever there was a blast or a bomb, the patients would always be taken there as they have the best doctors,” Le Brun says. “Like Médecins Sans Frontières they’re apolitical and work everywhere, irrespective of who is in power.”
Until the country is safe enough for outsiders to visit — and see the weavers and glass makers and jewellers in person — buying from Ishkar may be the next best thing. Although the rugs could take a while to get here — each can take between one and six months for two to four women to make. So it’s worth browsing the website sooner rather than later.
The anniversary rugs are on show on November 6 and 7, accompanied by a programme of talks, at Ladbroke Hall, London W10 6AZ. The Ishkar showroom is at 94 Columbia Road, London E2 7QB. ishkar.com
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