Salalah, Oman, September 30---Visitors at the Crowne Plaza Resort Salalah were in for a surprise at the end of last month when a selection of fine Persian carpets was on show in the hotel.
For these were not your typical Persian rugs - they were carpets depicting breathtaking portraits of Iranian monuments in intricate detail.
"The main reason we are here is to introduce the people of the region to our art," said architect Mohammed Haghighi, business manager of Haghighi Carpets of Isfahan, Iran.
"Our brand in Iran is like Gucci in Italy."
Haghighi said that he wants people to realize how cheap hand made Persian carpets are relative to the time and effort it takes to create them.
"Countries such as India, Pakistan, and China mass produce cheaper carpets," said Amirhossein Haghighi, Mohammed's brother. He said these carpets are often of bad quality, especially the dyes, but they sell quickly because of their cheap price.
Mohammed Haghighi, whose family has been in the carpet-making business for more than a century, explained that Iran is the best place for producing carpets because the carpet industry belongs to Iran.
"The weaving technique is mastered with age long dexterity. If you want to buy good quality perfume," he said, "you would go to Paris because Paris is the best place for perfume."
Haghighi Carpets, which has been in business since 1890, won the Tehran-based International Grand Hand Woven Carpet Exhibition's Shaneh Bolourine award for their exceptional design and craftsmanship twice in 2001 and 2002.
Apart from the traditional carpet design, Haghighi weaves portraits, mostly of Iranian landmarks, into carpets. These portraits are not just any illustrations, they are three dimensional images.
"If you close your fist and look at the carpet right through it, the image will come alive," Haghighi said.
If you look at one of the carpets depicting the courtyard and fountain of a palace in Isfahan from one angle and slowly move to another, you feel as though the image's perspective is changing, as though you really are inside the palace.
The carpet-making process is directed by Haghighi's father, Feizollah Haghighi, owner of Haghighi Carpets, who works closely with the designers and weavers. It takes 10 people to make a 1.5 x 2.5 meter carpet.
It is very difficult," said Amirhossein Haghighi, "you must calculate everything. First, you have to have the entire design in your mind."
Then follows the intricate and time-consuming process of drawing colors on wool or silk and weaving, he said.
The company uses natural dyes all drawn from plants. Applying these colors is an art in itself. "When you extract the colors while the plant is still wet, you get a different color than when the plant is dried up," said Mohammed Haghighi. "Using colors is the first and foremost thing you should know about in the carpet-making business."
The three dimensional portraits can have up to 3 different colors in one knot. One of the portraits illustrating the main hall of a public bath has beams of light projecting from the ceiling windows. The accuracy and consistency in the shades reflect a remarkable ability to control uniformity and use colors with such skill and competence.
In terms of cost, the portrait that won Haghighi Carpets the 2002 award was priced by the judging committee at $250,000.
This portrait, which depicts the inside of the Khaje Nasir mosque in the Iranian city of Shiraz, took two years to design and dye and two and a half years to weave.
Haghighi said that people think the price is fair. Still he wants the future owner of this portrait to have an air of appreciation of art and not simply be rich.
