Orion Flag Rug

Our story began In 1960, when soli Kelaty founded The Asiatic Carpet Company, supplying oriental carpets and retailers in an around London, working out of his van and his garage.  Soli moved into his first premises in Finchley in 1962 and began specialising in Indian & Chinese carpets as well as Persian goods.

By 1985, when Soli’s daughter Sharon joined, Asiatic was at the dawn of a new era.  The father and daughter team were the first to take advantage of free trade between the UK and China, propelling Asiatic into a unique market-leading position.  Soli soon opened an office in Beijing, which enabled Asiatic to lead the way in standardising product and delivering in volume.  As the company grew Asiatic took on more premises, moving the OCC in 1994, when Soli’s son Freddy also joined the team.

In the years that followed, our strategy was to broaden our modern rug portfolio, as the desire for traditional rugs declined, leading the market with fashion-orientated ranges. Being the first in the UK to adapt traditional rug making techniques for a contemporary market, Asiatic introduced the first of the modern Chinese collections in 1998, and we quickly became recognised as leaders and innovators, a position proudly held to the day.  In the same year we also launched our first machine made collections and opened a second distribution centre servicing bespoke volume products. We were thereby able to achieve second to none performance on stock and delivery, continuing to lead in excellence in quality and service.

In 2005, Asiatic opened it’s office in India, and the same year we launched our first major catalogue of modern ranges.  Katherine Carnaby was launched as a retail brand in 2015, and in 2016 the Asiatic Rug Collection was published.  This was our first comprehensive catalogue, setting a new benchmark in spread of ranges and depth of stock holding, for ready supply to national and international customers’ supply chains.

In 2019 Asiatic is taking the collection even further, with our largest ever launch of new products.