How to recognize an Azilal
Azilal rugs come from the High Atlas and are woven on an ivory ground like a Beni Ourain but with free, asymmetric, often abstract designs in bright dyed wool: orange, pink, red, purple, green, blue, sometimes with strips of fabric worked in. Beni M'Guild rugs from the Middle Atlas are denser and darker, with saturated purple, red and blue fields and lozenge designs. Both have a thick wool pile on a wool foundation. They are in the same new and renovated Long Island homes as Beni Ourains, in Huntington, Roslyn, Port Washington, Rockville Centre, Long Beach and the Hamptons.
- Origin
- High Atlas (Azilal), Middle Atlas (Beni M'Guild), Morocco
- Knot
- Symmetric, coarse
- Pile
- Wool, dyed and undyed
- Foundation
- Wool
- Dyes
- Synthetic, frequently unstable
- Our method
- Multi‑point dye test → double dusting → cold wash with stabilizer, short contact → extra rinse → centrifuge → slow groomed flat dry
