Heritage Craft, Reimagined. Complimentary Global Shipping. Free Trade Certified.
A WORLD BENEATH YOUR FEET
A map of our craft
HOW WE SEE IT
Fast gets all the attention but slow has the power
The proof is in the process
The proof is in the process
Our methods of rug-making are categorized by their regional roots, as is the tradition in the history of the medium. From the sweeping peaks of the High Atlas Mountains and the shifting ergs of the Sahara desert to the rich heritage of Morocco’s capital city, each medium of Atlas, Zahara, and Rabat offers its own origin story.
Regardless of construction, every rug that our artisans create is produced entirely by hand, only touching a machine when it comes time to travel to you. Threading the needle of the past through the present, our studio is the first of its kind in Morocco, combining all parts of the process — designing, weaving, washing, showcasing, and shipping—into one wondrous instrument. Outside of ready to ship styles, all rugs are handwoven to order with lead times ranging between 12-16 weeks.
Starting the journey on foot, our signature technique of Atlas, takes its name from the landscape of the Amazigh people whose handwoven rugs have been a part of Morocco’s cultural tapestry since long before the 7th century. Used as saddle blankets, sleeping mats and bed coverings, these ingenious heirlooms were essentials in people’s everyday lives in the Middle High Atlas Mountains. Beyond comfort and utility, these rugs were talismans of memory and lived experience from familial milestones to superstitions with every motif in a design signaling and preserving moments in a family’s legacy and lore.
More restrained than the shag appeal of Atlas, our Zahara rug construction dials in on the details of this ancient craft. Like grains of sand, thousands of tightly woven strands of woolen yarn merge together in impressively squished configurations that offer a tidy and light feel underfoot. Traditionally, these rugs featured bold geometric patterns or minimalist motifs, showcasing the supreme skill of the artisans who produced them.
Pushing the boundaries of craft even further, our most intricate construction, Rabat, is a hyper-fine point knotted style that was born in Morocco’s capital city over 500 years ago. Unaltered since its inception, our re-imagination of the method with the Rabat construction traces the lines of the medium’s history while forging a path of its own creation in the process.
From the High Atlas Mountains
Technique
Rugs born from the Atlas method offer a tall, standard height pile that averages around 1.25 inches. Shaggy and so very soft, the wool shorn for these rugs first finds its magic in the synergetic relationship between the sheep and the shearer, a respectful bond that’s been alive for eons. Our bread and butter, the Atlas technique is one that adds instantaneous spirit into a space. Its higher pile is lush and inviting, as if reaching out to the interior with a warm hello.
Atlas Low Pile
Sharing the same origin of craft, history, and knot density as Atlas rugs, our Atlas Low Pile construction has its pile trimmed to a height of roughly 2 to 2.5 cm, resulting in a more refined appearance that treads the line of old world charm and contemporary aesthetics.
The Beni difference
Atlas rugs are knotted, literally meaning that knots are tied around the warp, one by one, by the tens of thousands, to create every single rug. Though there are faster methods that cost less in time and craft, those shortcuts of looping wool instead of securely knotting it, result in products of brevity versus longevity. The proof is in the process as this way of weaving dates back to the roots of the craft when these rugs were used as utilitarian objects in the home and on the road.
Atlas arrangement
Atlas rugs can be placed anywhere, but are especially ideal for rooms that serve as respites from the rush of the world. Bedrooms, libraries, living rooms. These spaces are defined by their reflex associations of relaxation and comfort, much like the plush knots of an Atlas rug.
The warp and weft of the desert
The warp and weft of the desert
More restrained than the shag appeal of Atlas, our Zahara rug construction dials in on the details of this ancient craft. Like grains of sand, thousands of tightly woven strands of woolen yarn merge together in impressively squished configurations that offer a tidy and light feel underfoot. Traditionally, these rugs featured bold geometric patterns or minimalist motifs, showcasing the supreme skill of the artisans who produced them.
Zahara rugs
Technique
More restrained than the shag appeal of Atlas, our Zahara rug construction dials in on the details of this ancient craft. Like grains of sand, thousands of tightly woven strands of woolen yarn merge together in impressively squished configurations that offer a tidy and light feel underfoot. Traditionally, these rugs featured bold geometric patterns or minimalist motifs, showcasing the supreme skill of the artisans who produced them.
Zahara Arrangement
We’ve always admired the flatwoven style as a workhorse. Given its discreet and durable aesthetic with a thickness around .4 inches, these designs are perfect for those high-traction areas of a house or living space due to their lack of pile. This low-profile style is ideal for warm-weather environments where you want added texture, but not too much of it. It’s perfect for layering too, overlapping mixed-construction rugs on top of one another with the flatwoven style at the base.
Aesethetic Evolutions
Traditionally, flat-woven rugs featured bold geometric patterns or minimalist motifs, showcasing the supreme skill of the artisans who produced them. Though we dabble in this kind of minimalism, many of our Zahara styles expand the ancient approach to include an even more ornate level of decoration.
Rabat
Rabat
500 years in the making, Rabat is our evolved revival of the R’bati carpet, a hyper-fine point knotted style with roots that date back to Morocco’s palatial interiors of the early 19th century. Constructed from the highest quality fine wool, rugs born from this method consist of 64 knots per square inch versus the 12 knots of a shaggy Atlas design. The intricacy of this added effort allows for more creative liberty within the rug’s decoration, reorienting possibility and expectation.
Intersection
With the debut of Intersection, a collection designed with Studio KO, we introduced Rabat as our most intricate weaving technique to date, a method 500 years in the making.
ROBERT WRIGHT, BENI CO-FOUNDER
“Our Rabat method bridges past and present, paying homage to Morocco’s landscapes, people, and stories while in spirited exchange with the world. It is both a preservation and a re-imagination of the craft.”
Ethos and legacy
Ethos and legacy
Sam Cochran described Beni as a rug brand that is "heralding authenticity in a world rife with shaggy fakes." Rooted in duality our process honors ancient techniques while leaning gallantly toward the future.
HOW TO STYLE YOUR RUG
The art of arrangement
If you have the square feet to spare, you should always consider going up a size like you would with a nice pair of Italian loafers.
Perspective can be a tricky thing in life, but selecting the right size rug shouldn't get tangled up in all that existential clutter. How to choose the most savvy size for your rug just depends on what you want out of its presence. Are you looking for your feet to hit a plush pool of wool first thing in the morning? Do you want to safe-guard your dinner party so that it doesn't end in dining chairs that refuse to scoot? Below, are some of our most-quoted tips around the home office.
Canvas, Centerpiece, or Anchor
Let your rug be at the center of it all
Centering a rug in your living room without sofas, chairs, or side-tables touching its perimeter lends an airy, open feel. In this way, the rug becomes one of many elements of furniture and design objects that hang together in your home. To achieve this style, you need to leave adequate and consistent spacing between rug, furnishings, and any floor lighting. Generally speaking, it’s beneficial to allow at least 5” from the edge of the rug and the edge of your furnishings to ensure that adjacencies aren’t too tight. You want to make this arrangement feel intentional and not like an afterthought. You’ll want to avoid this set up in tighter quarter living spaces - this concept needs room to breathe in order to work.
Consider your rug an anchor
Anchor your living room rug with the front two legs of your sofa and side chairs. This arrangement subconsciously invites visitors into your living room and onto the rug – a generous and welcoming gesture. Because side tables and floor lighting are smaller in dimension, we recommend placing these either all on or all off the rug. Ensure furnishings are consistently placed around the perimeter of the rug for visual harmony and so they do not hover uncomfortably.
Picture your rug as a canvas
Considering your rug as a canvas for the rest of your furniture is a go-to approach of ours, especially for more open-concept floorplans that call for distinctions of space. This placement allows for the design of the rug to beautifully dictate the overall presence of the interior. To ensure your room is defined but not overpowered by your rug, place it at least six inches to one foot from the wall. Once some key pieces are where you want them, you’ll marvel at how quickly the rest falls into place.
In the Dining Room
Knotted or flat?
No one wants chairs that refuse to scoot. This is something to consider when weighing your options for pile height for rugs placed in a dining room. Our Zahara designs sport a flat, tight-woven weave that invites free movement and easy cleanup. On the other hand, there’s a decadence to the lush pile of an Atlas rug that offers fluffy retreat under the table for guests.
Food for thought
“It seems counter-intuitive I know, but a low pile Atlas rug with a pattern actually fares better in the long run under a dining table as it is much easier to get stains out of versus something more neutral and low profile that may hold the memory of a spill forever without washing the entire rug,” explains Beni co-founder Tiberio Lavo-Navia.
Travel paths
A guiding insight no matter what style rug is to leave enough room for chairs to remain on the rug when fully pulled away from the table. At least two (ideally three) feet of the rug should show from the edge of the table on all sides. You want to give enough room for chairs to remain on the rug when fully pulled away from the table. To calculate the right size of your rug with this approach, add four to six feet to both the length and the width of your table.
In the office
In the office
On the subject of chair sliding, we’ve arrived at the aesthetic architecture of the office. The corporate cousin to the dining room, the home office or shared conference room is a space where time and ideas are shared over long meetings and collaborative projects—all of which calls for high comfort and low distraction. If you own a task chair with rolling casters (avoid these where possible), consider a flatwoven Zahara style (before a knotted Atlas rug) that allows your chair to glide easily across the design’s surface. To best understand the difference in materiality, it’s helpful to picture rolling a marble across a flat plank versus a patch of grass. In general, you want to allow for at least 30 inches of rug to show from the edge of your desk or worktable surface to allow for adequate chair clearance.
Just behind a hearty shakshuka, we’d argue that having your feet fall out of bed and onto the soft wool of a rug is the most essential morning ritual. This first step into the day sets the pace for everything to come, and serves as a sort of meditation. With rug placement in the bedroom, there’s two paths to follow.
In the bedroom
Partial placement
A medium-sized, 8x10, rug can be arranged partially underneath the bed. In this case, we recommend styling a rectangular design perpendicular to the bed. Generally speaking, you want the lower two thirds of the bed to sit on the rug with any side tables resting on the bare floor. It’s comfortable to have at least 18 inches exposed lengthwise on either side of the bed.
Full placement
Leaning in more fully, there’s the approach of placing the bed entirely on top of the rug, using its design as a stage. Much like using a rug as a centerpiece, this aesthetic calls for lots of room to play with as you want to leave plenty of space on either side of the bed for side tables and lighting (at least around 30 inches of clearance on both sides will do the trick). Most crucially, don’t sleep on the bedframe. Be sure to take your overall dimensions into consideration and then add a minimum of 30 inches to all sides to ballpark the ideal measurement of your rug. With this calculation, we’re picturing a rug that’s either 9x12 or 10x14.
It’s helpful to experiment with craft paper to measure all this out, also being mindful of side table placement. Ideal rug sizes for a bedroom are typically 8x10, 9x12 or 10x14 depending on the scale of your mattress and frame.
For an entryway or foyer
For an entryway or foyer
First impressions mean the most when entering someone’s space, whether that’s a home, a studio, or an office. With that in mind, it’s hard to top the comforting statement of an artful runner or area rug in the entry or foyer. Since this area gets high traffic, rug pads are critical to keep your rug reliably placed, especially for flatwoven Zahara styles. It’s generally beneficial to have at least 4 inches between the walls of your entryway and foyer and the rug itself, to give a sense of openness and spaciousness to your entryway. Always consider the clearance of your doorways to ensure the rug is placed at a safe distance from any swinging door to minimize unwanted friction.
