Mistral Rugs: Where the Look Comes From

Mistral is not a weaving town. It is a design idea — the wind of Provence — and this is what it means when it turns up on a rug.

Where the idea comes from

The mistral blows down the Rhône valley for days at a time, and Provençal building and planting are both organised around it. A wind strong enough to shape a landscape can shape a pattern.

In our range this sits in the Painterly collection. Abstract designs closer to canvas than to carpet: washes, gradients and drifts, with no repeating motif to find.

How to read the pattern

Directional sweeping marks all running the same way. Everything in the field has been pushed.

Mistral in a machine washable rug

Colour without edges is the hardest thing to weave. A gradient has to be built from discrete yarns, so the transition is really a very fine dither — which is why these designs need a dense, low pile to read smoothly.

Our Mistral designs are woven in chenille polyester on a woven cotton backing with a non-slip finish. That construction is what makes the rug washable at 30°C in a domestic machine — there is no latex or rubber layer to crack, and no wool to felt. It is a genuinely different object from the originals this idea is drawn from, and it is meant to be: one is an heirloom, the other is a floor covering you can put in the wash.

Colours it comes in

We currently weave 1 Mistral design, across 2 colour families — pink & fuchsia and lilac & purple. Prices run from £50 for the 60 × 100 cm to £185 for the 200 × 300 cm, with delivery to the UK and Europe included.

What size to buy

Painterly designs are effectively unique at every size, since the pattern does not repeat. Larger sizes show more of the composition.

Every design is woven in all ten sizes: 60 x 100, 80 x 150, 100 x 200, 120 x 180, 80 x 300, 100 x 300, 155 x 230, 200 x 300, 160 round, 200 round cm. We would put Mistral in the living room, the bedroom, the dining room and the hallway before anywhere else.

Common questions

Is this the same as a hand-knotted Mistral?

No — and it does not claim to be. Mistral is a contemporary design rather than a reproduction of an antique, so there is no hand-knotted original it is copying.

What colours does Mistral come in?

2 colour families — pink & fuchsia and lilac & purple. We file a rug under the colour it reads as across a room, not the colour covering the most area, so an ivory ground with strong blue motifs is listed under blue.

Where should a Mistral rug go?

The living room, The bedroom, The dining room and The hallway suit it best. Anchor the sofa and coffee table. Because it washes at 30°C, the rooms most people avoid putting a rug in — kitchen, hallway, under a dining table — are the ones where it earns its keep.

Living with it

• Machine washable at 30°C on a gentle cycle — sizes up to 120 × 180 cm fit a standard 7 kg drum.
• Non-slip woven cotton backing: no separate underlay needed on wood, tile or laminate.
• Low pile, so robot vacuums pass over it without snagging.
• No latex, glue or rubber crumb — nothing to break down into dust.
• Dry flat or over a rail. Never tumble dry.