The region’s leading handmade carpet house Iwan Maktabi, unveiled four new collections at a cocktail soiree held at the brand’s Dubai flagship store on Jumeirah Beach Road. This event, the first since the grand opening of the store in November last year, also marked the launch of Iwan Maktabi Reveals, an initiative under which the brand offers exclusive previews of new releases to carpet connoisseurs and the design community.
For the first edition of Iwan Maktabi Reveals, the carpet maker showcased collections created in collaboration with multi-award-winning design firm Rabih Geha Architects (RG/A) and artist Leila Jabre Jureidini, two regionally renowned Lebanese creatives. The brand also revealed a collection developed in-house by Iwan Maktabi LAB, their atelier established in 2021 by Co-founder and Creative Director Mohamed Maktabi.
The four new collections, all produced by the LAB, is the result of a rigorous process that blends creative exploration with technology, innovative materials and traditional weaving techniques.
Talking at the launch, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Dubai operations, Mona Maktabi said, “When we founded the LAB in 2021, we were engaged in the research and development of up to four special projects annually. Now in our fifth year, we are planning to release close to twenty new collections to meet the market’s demand for rug novelties. In this inaugural edition of Iwan Maktabi Reveals, we are pleased to support Rabih Geha and Leila Jabre, two Lebanese artists whose strong visual languages translate beautifully into carpet collectibles.”
To break away from the exhibition format, Iwan Maktabi partnered with architect and designer Roula Salamoun, to create an immersive scenography, integrating the collections with design pieces from Cassina. The discovery was further enhanced through an engaging walk and talk with the artists.
A collaboration long in the making, the engagement with Rabih Geha Architects (RG/A), produced two new collections, although the brief was only for one.
The first, titled “Blip”, celebrates unexpected, minor deviations in rhythm and design. The duotone series in muted pink, grey, green and beige is based on Founder Rabih Geha’s premise that a grid is interesting in design only when it has instances of interruptions.
“Fold”, the second collection by Geha, draws from his eponymous studio RG/A’s method of recycling old ideas into new ones. Suggesting a crumpled two-dimensional canvas, the design creates an optical illusion of folds through the use of shadows, despite being flat. This colourful series woven with contrasting yet complementary hues, is intended as a statement piece for interiors.
The Other Side by artist Leila Jabre Jureidini is a continuation of her most recent work “Filiation” that explores themes related to identity, memory and personal history.
The last novelty on showcase was a collection created in-house by Iwan Maktabi LAB under the creative direction of Mohamed Maktabi. Titled “Concetto Spaziale”, the collection p
