National carpets inspire popular fashion designer

By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Spectacular fashion show "AFFFAIR in Carpets" and presentation of carpets have been held in Baku.

The large-scale event took place at the Heydar Aliyev Center with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Azernews reports.

Inspired by Azerbaijani carpets, in particular, from the Karabagh carpet school, the project focuses at preserving the historic traditions in contemporary ways.

The fashion show featured magnificent dresses designed by acclaimed national designer Rufat Ismayil. The fashion collection was designed on the basis of Azerbaijani carpet motifs.

For many centuries, the carpet-weaving art has been passed down from generation to generation in Azerbaijan. Diverse carpet motifs have always given impetus to creative ideas and art works.

The Heydar Aliyev Foundation successfully implements a number of projects to support, preserve and promote Azerbaijan's carpet-weaving worldwide.

In 2010, the Azerbaijani carpet art was included into the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO.

Entered on UNESCO's list, the national traditional carpet-making art again draws attention to new projects.

Speaking at the event, the Board Chairman of Azerkhalcha OJSC Emin Mammadov stressed that Azerbaijani carpet weaving has a long history.

"Azerbaijani carpet weaving has a long history, being a classic art. Each type of art, including carpet art, is on the path of development and search for new ideas realized in collaboration with designers and conceptual artists. Thanks to this, we are implementing new projects to preserve and Azerkhalcha OJSC works presented here, created on the basis of five well-known carpet motifs, have been produced in a limited number of 25 copies. In the new project, we created harmony and synthesis of ancient traditions and modern trends," he said.

The fashion show included 50 dresses from the collections "Sumakh Haute Couture" and "Sumakh Affordable Luxury".

So far, the fashion collection Sumakh Haute Couture" has been previously demonstrated in Paris and Moscow. The collection "Sumakh Affordable Luxur" was presented in Baku for the first time.

Art works created on the basis of five famous carpet motifs included in the collection are especially remarkable.

The carpet "Folding-unfolding" is remarkable among Karabagh carpets for their artistic features, being a part of the set of patterns related to the series of "Folding-unfolding" carpets.

Elements of another artwork, remarkable for its beauty, originate from the Karabakh carpet. Seeming to be composed of repeated elements from the first sight, this composition scatters about as a myriad of stars.

The art work called "Nakhchivan" was created from various elements of a carpet, an example of the Karabakh carpet school, and new composition by using patterns of the Khatai and Chalabi carpets.

The artist was inspirated by the elements of Hunting carpets (Karabakh carpet school) and used elements of the composition "Band-Rumi", which has been widely seen in Azerbaijani and the Near East art schools. As a result, he created a beatiful artistic composition with a lattice content.

The art work "Pazyryk" took its source from the carpet of the same name related to the Turkic ancestry and is considered the oldest carpet in the world (dating back to 2500 years), preserved at the Russian Hermitage Museum.