Resources & Guides
The Colour Specification behind every colour name in the shop — where each colour begins and ends
Colour Specification 1.0 · effective 5 September 2026 · CIELCh(ab), D65, 2° observer (ISO/CIE 11664-4); sRGB IEC 61966-2-1 input
Every carpet in the shop is described with one or two of fourteen colour names. Names are only useful if they mean the same thing to you and to us, so this guide defines each one in numbers: a region of the CIELAB colour space, the system textile laboratories use to measure colour. Any colour a camera can record falls into exactly one region, and the guide shows you where the borders run.
It also shows what the numbers cannot: how the light in your room, the screen you are reading on and the fibre of the rug itself change what you see. Use the disc to explore, the probe to test any colour, and the lighting simulator to preview a colour under your own lamps.
One slice of the colour space at a time: hue runs around the disc, chroma — how far from grey — runs outward, and the slider sets the lightness. The lines are our boundaries; the pills name the regions. Hatched areas are colours your screen cannot display, shown as the nearest colour it can.
Hatched: colours a standard sRGB screen cannot display, shown as the nearest it can.
A single colour has exactly one name. A rug has many colours, so the second half of the specification says how they add up to the names on its page.
| Palette (share of the pile) | Main colours | Accent colours |
|---|---|---|
| A beige ground with red and blue motifs and green detailsBeige 45%Red 20%Blue 20%Green 15% | Beige and Red | Blue and Green |
| A red and blue rug in equal measure, with beige and green detailsRed 35%Blue 35%Beige 15%Green 15% | Red and Blue | Beige and Green |
| A red rug with blue, beige and green detailsRed 70%Blue 12%Beige 10%Green 8% | Red | Blue, Beige, and Green |
| Red, blue and green in equal thirdsRed 34%Blue 33%Green 33% | Colorful | Red, Blue, and Green |
Each card gives the definition generated from the rules below — the same rules the probe and the disc use — followed by what the family covers in everyday words and which families it borders. Silver is our name for the whole grey family, and colourful is a verdict about a rug, not a colour.
hue from 42° to the yellow–green line Hyg(L*) and chroma C* below 40
Sand, tan, camel, khaki, oatmeal, wheat and champagne: light, warm colours with little chroma. Cream and ivory sit under white; a deep tan tips into brown.
hue from 340° to 54°, chroma C* at least 30, and lightness L* below the warm ceiling Lw(h) or hue from 54° to 60°, chroma C* at least 60, and lightness L* below 58
Crimson, burgundy, maroon, rust, brick and terracotta. A faded rust or a brick red is still red; a dull, dark red-orange becomes brown.
hue from the yellow–green line Hyg(L*) to 170°
Forest, olive, sage, mint, lime and emerald. Olive belongs here: a yellow that dark has lost its yellow identity.
Borders on: Beige, Yellow, Black, Silver, Brown, White, and Turquoise
hue from 218° to 310°
Navy, royal, cobalt, denim, sky and slate. Navy is blue however dark, unless it is so dark and so muted that it reads black.
hue from 30° to 42° and chroma C* at least 60 or hue from 42° to 75°
Orange, coral, apricot and burnt orange. A light, quiet orange is beige; a dark, dull one is brown; a saturated dark one is red.
hue from 75° to the yellow–green line Hyg(L*)
Gold, mustard, saffron, lemon and goldenrod. Dark yellows become olive greens or browns; pale, quiet yellows become beige.
any hue, chroma C* below 30, and lightness L* below 20 or any hue, chroma C* below the neutral ceiling Cn(L*), and lightness L* below 30
Very dark colours of any hue, and dark greys. Persian off-blacks — deep indigo, aubergine — are black by this rule, and we say so on those rugs.
any hue, chroma C* below the neutral ceiling Cn(L*), and lightness L* below 90
Every grey: pale grey, taupe, greige, charcoal and steel. Silver is the shop’s name for the grey family.
Borders on: Beige, Green, Blue, Purple, Brown, Pink, and Turquoise
hue from 340° to 360° and lightness L* below 52 or hue from 310° to 340°
Violet, lilac, mauve, plum, aubergine, magenta and indigo. The line to blue runs at 310°; the line to pink at 340°.
Borders on: Red, Blue, Black, Silver, Brown, Pink, and White
hue from 0° to the yellow–green line Hyg(L*) and lightness L* below the warm ceiling Lw(h)
Saddle brown, coffee, chocolate, umber, ochre and copper: dark, warm colours that are neither saturated enough for red or orange nor light enough for beige.
hue from 340° to 30° or hue from 30° to 42°
Rose, salmon, hot pink, dusty rose and blush: the light and vivid magenta-reds. A pink that darkens becomes red or purple.
Borders on: Beige, Red, Orange, Silver, Purple, Brown, and White
any hue and chroma C* below the neutral ceiling Cn(L*)
White, ivory, cream and the palest tints. Undyed wool is what a white rug means, so cream is white.
hue from 170° to 218°
Turquoise, teal, aqua and cyan — the whole blue-green family, from a deep teal to a pale aqua.
At least three colour families each covering 15% of the pile, with no family reaching 40% and no two together reaching 70%
A rug with no dominant colour: at least three families in near-equal measure. The individual colours are still recorded as accents so the rug appears in their filters.
Each strip walks across one boundary in equal steps, with the coordinate that changes under every swatch. The rule between two swatches marks the hand-over: the last of one name, the first of the next.
The rules are read from the top; the first that matches a colour gives its name. The three curves make the table honest where a flat threshold would lie.
| # | Family | Condition | Captures |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black | any hue, chroma C* below 30, and lightness L* below 20 | Very dark colours of any hue: the Persian off-blacks (deep indigo, aubergine), near-black browns. |
| 2 | Black | any hue, chroma C* below the neutral ceiling Cn(L*), and lightness L* below 30 | Dark greys. |
| 3 | Silver | any hue, chroma C* below the neutral ceiling Cn(L*), and lightness L* below 90 | Every grey — silver is our name for the whole grey family: taupe, greige, charcoal. |
| 4 | White | any hue and chroma C* below the neutral ceiling Cn(L*) | Light neutrals: white, ivory, cream, and the palest tints such as lavender. |
| 5 | Red | hue from 340° to 54°, chroma C* at least 30, and lightness L* below the warm ceiling Lw(h) | Red, crimson, maroon, burgundy, sienna, rust — a faded rust is still red. |
| 6 | Red | hue from 54° to 60°, chroma C* at least 60, and lightness L* below 58 | Terracotta and brick: saturated dark orange-hues read as rust. |
| 7 | Purple | hue from 340° to 360° and lightness L* below 52 | Dusky dark magentas: eggplant, plum. |
| 8 | Brown | hue from 0° to the yellow–green line Hyg(L*) and lightness L* below the warm ceiling Lw(h) | Every remaining dark warm colour: saddle brown, coffee, umber, ochre. |
| 9 | Pink | hue from 340° to 30° | Light magenta-reds: pink, hot pink, rose, dusty rose. |
| 10 | Orange | hue from 30° to 42° and chroma C* at least 60 | Tomato and orange-red at high lightness. |
| 11 | Pink | hue from 30° to 42° | Salmon, light coral. |
| 12 | Beige | hue from 42° to the yellow–green line Hyg(L*) and chroma C* below 40 | Light, warm and quiet: khaki, tan, sand, camel, wheat, champagne, peach. |
| 13 | Orange | hue from 42° to 75° | Orange, coral, sandy brown. |
| 14 | Yellow | hue from 75° to the yellow–green line Hyg(L*) | Yellow, gold, mustard, goldenrod. |
| 15 | Green | hue from the yellow–green line Hyg(L*) to 170° | Green, olive, forest, sage, mint, lime. |
| 16 | Turquoise | hue from 170° to 218° | Turquoise, teal, cyan. |
| 17 | Blue | hue from 218° to 310° | Blue, navy, midnight, royal, sky, slate. |
| 18 | Purple | hue from 310° to 340° | Purple, violet, indigo, magenta, lilac, mauve. |
Colour names are not flat boxes. How much chroma a grey tolerates, where yellow gives way to green, and how light a warm colour must be before it turns pink, beige or orange all depend on lightness or hue — so three published curves take the place of three fixed numbers.
Every colour on this page is defined for daylight — CIE illuminant D65, the white of a calibrated screen and of our studio. A lamp with a lower colour temperature sends more red and less blue light at the rug, and the light the rug reflects shifts the same way. Choose a lamp to see the reference swatch of every family, and your own probed colour, under it.
| Colour | 2700 K · warm bulb | 3000 K · halogen | 4000 K · cool white LED | 5000 K · daylight studio | 6500 K · daylight D65 (reference) | 7500 K · overcast shade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beige | ||||||
| Red | ||||||
| Green | ||||||
| Blue | ||||||
| Orange | ||||||
| Yellow | ||||||
| Black | ||||||
| Silver | ||||||
| Purple | ||||||
| Brown | ||||||
| Pink | ||||||
| White | ||||||
| Turquoise |
We compute the shift with the Bradford chromatic-adaptation transform, the method colour management uses: the colour is converted to CIE XYZ, expressed as three cone-like responses, each response is scaled by the ratio between the lamp’s white and daylight white, and the result is converted back for your screen. “Camera” shows the full shift, as a photograph balanced for daylight would record it. Your eyes, however, re-balance to the room within minutes and cancel about nine tenths of it — a degree of adaptation of 0.9 for ordinary living-room brightness in the CIECAM16 model — and “Eyes” applies that correction. It is the honest prediction of what you will perceive: whites and beiges warm slightly, blues and turquoises lose a little life under a 2700 K bulb, reds gain some.
The simulation assumes a lamp of normal colour rendering (CRI 80 or better) and ignores the individual spectrum of the lamp and of the dyes — two dyes that match under one light can part under another, an effect called metamerism. Read it as a tendency, not a measurement.
No two screens show a colour the same way. Brightness, colour range, a night-shift mode or a yellowed panel all move what you see, and none of it is under our control. The check below tells you whether your screen is hiding detail at the dark or light end.
Every step should be distinct from its neighbours. If the darkest or lightest steps merge, your screen is hiding detail at that end.
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If neighbouring greys merge at either end, the same detail is missing from our photographs on your screen: the darkest reds and blues of a rug will look blacker, the palest ivories whiter. This is a self-test, not a calibration — a colour-managed browser on a calibrated display is the reference the specification assumes.
A rug is not a flat, matte swatch. Four properties of the material change the colour you see without changing the colour it is.
Wool absorbs light and gives a deep, even colour that barely changes with the angle of view. Silk reflects it: a silk rug, or silk highlights in a wool one, shifts from vivid to pale as you walk around it and can read as a different family from two ends of the room. Both are the same dye; the sheen is the difference.
Knotted pile leans one way. Looking into the pile you see the sides of the fibres and the colour appears darker and richer; looking with it you see the tips and the same colour appears lighter and cooler. Turning a rug by 180 degrees can change its apparent lightness by several units of L*. Our photographs are taken looking into the pile.
Hand-dyed wool is dyed in small batches, and no two batches match exactly. The result is abrash: gentle bands where one batch gives way to the next across a field of the same colour. It is a signature of hand-knotted rugs and of natural dyes, not a defect, and it is why a colour on one of our rugs is a family, not a single value.
Vintage and antique pieces have lived with light. Sunlight softens dyes over decades — reds toward rose, blues toward grey-blue — and the change is uneven, deeper at the exposed end. We describe such rugs as they are today, and note the condition on the product page.
Every rug is photographed in our studio under daylight-balanced lighting of 5000–5600 K, white-balanced against a neutral grey card in the frame, looking into the pile, then checked by eye against the rug itself before publication. Colour names are given by a person looking at the rug, not at the photograph, and follow this specification.
Colours are located in CIELAB (CIE 1976 L*a*b*, ISO/CIE 11664-4) under illuminant D65 for the 2° standard observer, converted from sRGB (IEC 61966-2-1) values, and expressed in cylindrical form as lightness L*, chroma C* and hue angle h. Boundaries are half-open intervals: a colour exactly on a line belongs to the family on the higher side. The rules are applied in order and the first match wins, so every colour has exactly one name.
The disc, the probe, the strips and the product pages all run the same code from the same table, and an automated test asserts that the table has not moved without a change of version. Colours beyond the sRGB gamut are shown at the highest chroma the screen can display, at the same lightness and hue, and are marked as such.
Rugs are described under the version in force when they were catalogued. Changing any number in this specification is a new version with a new effective date.
Colour Specification 1.0 · effective 5 September 2026 · CIELCh(ab), D65, 2° observer (ISO/CIE 11664-4); sRGB IEC 61966-2-1 input