Since 2021, carpet weaving has remained one of a shrinking number of trades Afghan women are still permitted to practise. It's against this backdrop that ISHKAR, the design house founded in Kabul in 2016, marks its tenth anniversary with a collection of ten hand-knotted rugs, each designed by a different international artist or architect around the theme "Togetherness."
Rug weavers seated at the loom. Photo: Reza Esmailzada, courtesy of ISHKAR
Every piece was made in northern Afghanistan by teams of two weavers working together for four to six months, from spinning the wool and mixing the dyes through to the final wash and shear. The wool, a regional variety called Ghazni, absorbs colour unevenly along each strand, producing a mottled, light-catching effect known as abrash, so no two lengths of the same red or blue ever quite match. ISHKAR works with Label Step to ensure fair wages and safe conditions across the supply chain, standards that matter in a sector supporting over a million Afghan women.
Trimming 'Cake' by Louis Barthélemy. Photo: Atif Aryan
ISHKAR x Louis Barthélemy, Cake, 2026. Hand-knotted Ghazni wool & Herati Silk, 200cm x 400cm.
Louis Barthélemy's Cake traces back to a 2024 collaboration, when weavers sketched memories tied to Kabul's Babur Garden and one recurring image, a tiered cake associated with birthdays and picnics, became the basis for this design in wool and Herati silk, its frosted layers built with a precision the original drawing never needed. Hangama Amiri, an Afghan-Canadian artist and former refugee, fragments ikat prints and suzani patterning into a study of dislocation and home. Cassi Namoda's rug marks the birth of her daughter, while Meherunnisa Asad's Nahān follows lapis lazuli on its six-thousand-year route from Afghan mines into pigment, and now into wool, its surface interrupted by a single void at the centre.
Lapis Lazuli mined in Afghanistan. Photo: Amna Zuberi, courtesy of Studio Lél
ISHKAR x Meherunnisa, Nahān, 2026. Hand-knotted Ghazni wool, 200cm x 300cm.
Architects treated the loom differently again. Farshid Moussavi and Zaha Hadid Architects both worked at a scale closer to facade than furnishing, thinking in structure rather than decoration. Beirut-founded studio David/Nicolas drew on natural formations for Sillage, curving lines evoking wood grain or a landscape shaped by wind and water. Ilse Crawford of StudioIlse, known for centring human need in design, brought that sensibility to her piece in wool and silk.
Shearing 'Juy', ISHKAR x Lulu Lytle, 2026. Photo: Atif Aryan
ISHKAR x Lulu Lytle, Juy, 2026. Hand-knotted Ghazni wool, 208cm x 258cm.
Lulu Lytle of Soane Britain looked to Persian garden carpets for Juy, the Dari word for stream, its channels picturing water shared and carried through a garden. ISHKAR's own design team closed the collection with a rug pairing Afghanistan's mountains against Britain's coastline, a tribute to the two places the project connects.
Ten per cent of proceeds go to EMERGENCY, funding maternity care, ambulances and first-aid posts across Afghanistan. Since 2020, ISHKAR's print sales alone have raised over £105,000 for the organisation's work in the country.
. . .
Further Information:
ISHKAR collaborative rugs go on show at Ladbroke Hall, London, on 6 and 7 November, with talks running alongside, before moving to ISHKAR's showroom. Online sales open on 5 November.
. . .
Image Credits:
Lead: ISHKAR x Hangama Amiri, Still Life with Ikat Prints and Suzani Fabrics 2026. Hand-knotted Ghazni wool, 170cm x 235cm.
All further images as credited in captions.