An anchor in Dallas for over a half-century, with year-round showrooms in Las Vegas and High Point, Feizy is going West. Detecting a neglected marketplace with immense potential, the wide-ranging rug brand—which offers hand-knotted luxury weaves alongside machine-made performance pieces, all exclusively to the trade—has soft-opened a boutique showroom-within-a-showroom at partner NW Rugs & Furniture on the edges of Portland, Oregon. The new Feizy Design Gallery, slated to officially launch on August 26, promises to be much more than a destination for designers to experience the brand’s portfolio in person. Offering custom capabilities and logistical support for residential and commercial projects, as well as educational programming and networking opportunities, “it’s the total package,” says Michael Riley, president of the company.
LEGACY, QUALITY, LUXURY
Founded in 1973 by John Feizy, who “came from Iran with a few rugs to his name,” says Riley, the brand opened its first showroom in Dallas’s World Trade Center. “The roots of the company are firmly set in the interior design sector, from our higher-end, hand-knotted styles to the most fashionable colors and trends,” he adds. Feizy also had the foresight to purchase a machine-made-rug factory in Turkey in 2000, enabling the production of durable, high-density area rugs from natural and synthetic fibers through modern power-looming technology. The bulk of the brand’s handmade pieces are crafted in India, while others are imported from Pakistan, joining pre-embargo inventory from Iran and other countries.
“You’d think that most business to the trade entailed fine rugs only, but designers are not just buying one luxury piece for the living room or primary suite: They’re outfitting the whole home. So, that machine-made rug is super important for high-traffic areas,” Riley explains. “Feizy runs the gamut.” With 8 by 10 feet as the standard reference size, prices start from $800 for machine-made products and scale to $50,000 for a custom-crafted piece. “It’s not uncommon for interior designers to sell our rugs to their clients for 20, 30, 40 thousand dollars,” he says.
In consultation with its revolving advisory board of design insiders, the brand researches and responds to what’s happening in the sector, not simply replicating trends but directing them through its 400 SKUs. The Killian collection, available in six rich palettes, reintroduces patterns in the tradition of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. Hand-knotted in India, each artisanal wool rug is colored with natural vegetable dyes, resulting in individual variations. “It takes nine months to a year to weave each one,” says Riley. “They’re significant, spectacular pieces of art.” Feizy’s popular collaboration with Thom Filicia features more minimalist, geometric designs in neutral beiges, ivories, charcoals and browns. Many are handloomed with loop-and-cut high-low pile that creates textural dimension underfoot. “Just super salable, day-in, day-out styles in a range of prices,” he notes.
A NEW FRONTIER
Now, rather than virtually touring Feizy’s immense One-of-a-Kind warehouse—or calling in samples, or actually traveling to Dallas—the design community from Seattle to Sacramento can access Feizy’s delights at its new Beaverton, Oregon, gallery. “We’ve got tremendous amounts of inventory: 52,000 one-of-a-kind rugs in Dallas alone,” says Riley. “The challenge is: How do we get them in front of people?” Bypassing the expense and red tape of leasing local showrooms in major metropolitan areas, the company instead decided to seek out partners with trusted relationships and regional expertise in burgeoning secondary markets. “At NW Rugs & Furniture, we’ve established a mini Feizy showroom where clients residing or with projects in the Pacific Northwest can see our product in person,” he explains.
The practice harkens back to the glory days of department stores, when rug companies would rent a spot on the floor and present vignettes to entice customers passing by on their way to housewares or bed linens. In the Oregon gallery, rugs are exhibited as works of art, displayed in a stand-alone, walled-off space with bespoke lighting and even a separate entrance. “NW Rugs has a huge operation of its own, so we want our customers to experience Feizy as a special event,” adds Riley.
Mention the Pacific Northwest and thoughts turn to Portlandia, Nirvana and Twin Peaks, pop culture reflecting the region’s reputation for being a bit offbeat and rebellious. When it comes to interiors, though, Feizy has found that the vibe is far from retro or grunge. “We ran our sales data from Washington and Oregon, and the delta was not as big as we would have expected from a design perspective,” says Riley. “Our business has always been coast-to-coast, and our 20 top-selling styles are pretty stable across the country.” The brand stocks some collections in Beaverton that it might not highlight elsewhere, alongside its latest product lines. Its Loom-Ready program, for example, combines customization with convenience by offering to-order sizing and design enhancements on hand-knotted base pieces from popular collections like the tribal-inspired Lombardy and the elegant abstractions of Merril. “We put the freshest merchandise and most trend-forward collections in the gallery, catered to the interior design community,” he notes. “A lot of thought has gone into the assortment.”
IT’S HANDLED
Further customization is fulfilled from Feizy headquarters, where a full-time team does everything from reweaving high-end antiques to dyeing fringes. “If a customer wants to substitute three colors in a Killian rug at a nonstandard size, the Beaverton gallery coordinates those changes with the Dallas department, which supplies samples, strike-offs—anything to make it easier on the designer,” says Riley. Next-level concierge service includes targeted search and suggestions, when the Feizy rep does the shopping for you. But the company aims to offer the trade much more than an extensive rug selection. The gallery functions as a full-service resource, receiving, inspecting, storing and delivering orders.
“Let a rug expert handle the rug,” says Riley. Feizy’s team understands the nuances necessary to transport luxury rugs, ensuring they’re not damaged during shipping or at any point thereafter. “A lot of furniture receivers aren’t familiar with fine rugs and don’t realize they’re dealing with a $20,000 work of art,” he explains. “They may just fold it over and throw it in the back of a truck.” Such carelessness can cause stains, creases and crushed fibers that need to be treated, ironed and steamed to remove. By consolidating all aspects of a transaction, Feizy eliminates such damage, deploying the same representatives who advised on style and size to inspect the final rug for its overall condition and color, matching it against samples on file with the order. Adding to the benefit of in-house receivership, the gallery provides storage at no extra cost. “It’s all part of that high-touch response to help designers get their rugs all the way to delivery,” he says.
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Beyond its luxe portfolio and logistical support, Feizy intends the new gallery to serve as a gathering place for the greater Portland design community, regularly offering CEU-accredited courses, industry parties and panels. The grand opening on August 26 will feature a talk on area rugs followed by a cocktail party co-sponsored by the Interior Design Society. “The launch is to give designers, architects, builders and other industry pros an understanding of what kind of resource the gallery can be,” says Riley.
Looking forward, he envisions influencers and industry talents coming together to connect about regional topics such as the impact of short-term vacation rentals. “From forming co-ops for buying power to sharing office space, it’s not all about individual firms anymore,” he says. “There’s a lot of collaboration among designers, and our hope is that we’re creating a communal hub to encourage them.”
Already, curious visitors have dropped in to explore. A designer on Feizy’s advisory board who is overseeing seven high-end home renovations from Dallas to coastal Oregon now has a veritable network to specify rugs. Encouraged by the early response, Feizy is bullish about opening a second boutique gallery in another “very hot” but underserved location. Says Riley: “We’re feeling strongly about Nashville—quarter one, next year.”
This story is a paid promotion and was created in partnership with Feizy.
Homepage image: Awash in waves of tangerine and blue, the Riplee collection—hand-knotted in India from 100 percent wool—ebbs and flows across a serene living room | Courtesy of Feizy
