Made for you

A custom Moroccan rug from Zarbish starts with your idea: a photo, a sketch, a room or a set of colors. We draw a mockup, your first within 1 hour while we're open, you approve it in writing, and our weavers hand-knot it in our workshop in the Middle Atlas, then ship it free worldwide.

The path

Ordering a custom rug is a conversation before it is a purchase. You send what you have, we answer with a drawing, and nothing is woven or paid for until you say yes to that drawing in writing.

1. You share the idea on the custom design form: a photo, a sketch, the room, the colors, and the size if you know it.
2. We draw a mockup. Your first mockup comes within 1 hour while we're open, or within 1 hour of our next opening. We are open every day, 10:00 to midnight, Morocco time.
3. You tell us what to change, and we send the revised drawing until it is the rug you meant.
4. You approve the final mockup in writing, and payment in full follows that approval.
5. Our weavers knot it, wash it and finish it, and it ships free to your door.

Design or size

Two different requests travel under the word "custom", and they take different routes.

A custom design is anything that changes the drawing: new colors, a different motif, a pattern of your own, or a rug made from a photograph. That goes through the custom design form and the mockup.

A custom size is one of our designs exactly as it is, woven to dimensions of your choosing. That needs no drawing at all. You choose "custom size" on the product page, enter your dimensions, and the price calculates on the spot; before weaving starts, you confirm the exact dimensions in writing. The FAQ answer can I get a custom size covers it in full. Either way, handwork carries a finishing tolerance of 3 to 4 cm (about 1.2 to 1.6 in) on the confirmed dimensions, so a rug planned to fit between two walls wants a little room at the edges.

What to send

The better the input, the closer the first mockup. Nobody needs a finished design to start, and a few honest words beat a long brief.

A photo is the fastest start: a rug you saw somewhere, a tile floor, a painting, a textile, the corner of your own room. A sketch works, even on paper with a phone camera. So does a description: "a quiet ivory rug with one soft green line near each end" is enough to draw from.

Then the practical part. Give us the dimensions if you have them. If you don't, tell us the room and what sits in it, the sofa, the bed, the table, and we work the size out from the furniture. If the piece has to sit with something you already own, a chair, a curtain, a painting, send a picture of that as well. Color is judged against what it lives beside.

The form asks for your name, your email, the size or the room, and a short description. Everything else is optional, and every extra photo saves a round of changes. The FAQ entry how does a fully custom rug work states the same steps in brief.

Your choices

These are the decisions a custom rug carries. You can make all of them on the form or leave some for the conversation.

Two rows matter more than they look. Shape changes the drawing, because a circle and a runner are composed for their own outline, so a round version of an idea is a related design rather than the same rug with its corners gone. And the pattern card called Sculpted is the one where the drawing lives in the pile instead of the color: raised and lower areas of the same wool, read by light and shadow.

Mockup to approval

The mockup is the point of the whole process. It is where the idea stops being a description and becomes a drawing you can hold against the room, at the size and in the colors you asked for, with the pile height and tassels written on it.

If something is off, say so. A color too warm, a motif too busy, a border you don't want: tell us what to change and we redraw it. It is a request rather than a purchase: nothing is paid while the drawing is still changing.

When the drawing is right, you approve it in writing. That approval covers the design, the size, the colors, the pile and the tassels, and payment in full follows it; there are no deposits and no balance later. Because the rug is then made to that approved design, a custom design can't be cancelled, returned or exchanged once approved. That is why you see it, change it and confirm it before a single knot is tied.

On price: we multiply the standard price for the same size and shape by 1.10 for a change to one of our designs, such as new colors or a changed motif, or by 1.20 for an original design. We then round up to the next price ending in 45 or 95. You see the exact figure with your mockup, before you approve anything. A custom size of an unchanged design costs the standard price for that size, with no design uplift. Pile height and tassels never change the price. For orientation, catalog rugs run from $495 to $4,295, runners from $395 to $995 and round rugs from $345 to $2,745.

On the loom

After approval, the timeline is the same as any rug of that size. Runners and rugs up to 4x6 ft (120x185 cm) take three to four weeks of production; 5x8 to 6x9 ft (150x245 to 185x275 cm), four to five; 8x10 to 9x12 ft (245x305 to 275x365 cm), five to six; anything larger, six to eight. Delivery takes three to seven business days after production.

Here the approved mockup keeps working after you have signed it. Our weavers knot the rug in wool, then wash it in our workshop before it ships, so it arrives ready to use. Our natural dyes are fixed so the color does not transfer or shift with use, and the wash in our workshop checks every color against the final design before the rug ships. For a custom piece, the final design is your mockup.

The rug arrives with its Craft Record, a numbered record of the design, the pile and tassels you chose, the workshop and the completion date, so what was agreed and what was made sit on the same card. Updates while it is on the loom, shipping, and duties outside the US are covered in ordering a rug from Morocco.

Where to start

Most custom rugs begin with a design that is almost right. Tigmi shows what a change does. On the cover it is a windowpane grid of purple and brown around ivory squares, firm enough to hold a long curved sofa in place. The round version above keeps the grid idea but draws it for the circle, in terracotta squares crossed by navy lines, and the same squares turn quiet again in a tonal terracotta version where the grid sits close to its ground. One structure, three moods: the palette decides whether the rug leads the room or settles into it. If a grid is your starting point, the rest of the Dama collection holds the checkered and plaid drawings to begin from.

Tadla makes the opposite argument. It has almost no color to change: one pale wool, with the pattern carved into the pile as raised squares split by lower channels. It is the rug to start from when the room already has plenty to look at and wants texture instead of another pattern. Asking for it in a different shade, or a different grid, is a custom request like any other.

Start with the photo you keep coming back to.

• Tigmi, Dama collection. /product/tigmi-purple-brown-moroccan-rug
• Tigmi, Dama collection, round. /product/tigmi-peach-terracotta-round-moroccan-rug
• Tadla, Terrain collection. /product/tadla-ivory-beni-mrirt-rug