Paul Thomas' Tibetan Rug Emporium

In 2000 I opened my ‘Rugs of Tibet’ emporium in downtown Hobart. Six years later in 2006 I closed the doors to focus more on my negleted farm.
Tibetan rugs have been famed for their design, colour and luxurious wool qualities. As well as local sales I have sold these beautiful rugs to America, Spain, England, Scotland, Japan and New Zealand, and most mainland states.
The rugs are handmade in the Tibetan refugee villages of Nepal. There are Tibetan rug distributors in the United States and Europe, especially in Britain, France and Germany, but it took a combination of lucky circumstances for Hobart to become their showplace in Australia.

I am a fifth generation Tasmanian farmer and have a small and very charming sheep farm on the hillsides overlooking Randalls Bay, an hour’s drive south of Hobart. The farm looks out over the scenic D’Entrecasteax Channel and Bruny Island and in winter, the snow-capped peaks of Mt La Perouse, Adamsons Peak and the Hartz Range remind me of the distant Himalayas where nomadic Tibetan shepherds grow wool for the carpet industry. I have been involved in the local carpet wool industry for twenty years since discovering the fledgling Carpetmaster sheep being bred in the Western District of Victoria while I was studying at Glenormiston Agricultural College.

In 1996, newly elected Greens Senator Bob Brown and I became partners and bought a house together in Hobart – close enough for me to keep an eye on my sheep at Randalls Bay.
Further opportunity came after Bob’s highly contentious secret trip into Tibet in 1998 to meet Tibetan freedom fighters. Tibet had been occupied by China’s Red Army with massive loss of life and destruction of the nation’s ancient buildings in 1959. The Dalai Lama and 80,000 fellow Tibetans fled south over the Himalayas to Nepal and India.

In Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, Bob met teenage Tibetans who told him they were secretly planning to walk over the high passes of the Himalayas to escape the repression in their homeland. Each winter, when ice makes big river crossings possible some 4,000 Tibetans risk frostbite, starvation and death to get to Nepal. From there they go further south to see their beloved Dalai Lama who lives in exile in northern India.

Back in Australia Bob planned a journey to Nepal to meet the refugee Tibetans who had escaped, to see their villages and hear their stories. I was keen to go with him.
In Kathmandu and at the lakeside town of Pokhara at the feet on the snowcapped Himalayas, we were captivated by the determination of the Tibetans to one day regain their freedom, but moreover by the beauty and quality of their carpets, which sustain them in exile.

My hands which have shorn many of my own sheep for mechanised carpet factories in Australia were now running through the lush pile of homemade carpets on the large wooden looms of a people using skills dating back two thousand years. I was captivated. Everything is done by hand. The wool comes from nomadic shepherds in Tibet. It is washed, carded, spun and dyed by hand. And then with meticulous patience – it takes an average weaver twenty days of fulltime weaving to make a square metre of a 60 knot to the square inch carpet and thirty days for a 100 knot to the square inch carpet - the carpets are made on vertical looms to skillfully drawn patterns. So, of course, the 100 knot product is of higher quality and more expensive. However, because the 60 knot rugs are noticeably thicker, many buyers prefer them for their warmth and softness: just the thing to curl up on with a book by the fire!

As the carpetmakers explained their difficulties in accessing western markets, I was suddenly taken by the idea of selling the rugs back in Australia. On our return, I found the right little shop (it’s 3 stories!) in Hobart’s Harrington Street and then went back to the Tibetan villages in Nepal to select my first shipment of carpets.

In September 2000 the Dalai Lama’s representative in Australia, Chope Tsering, opened my two-storey showrooms called ‘Rugs of Tibet’. The National Trust classified building was crammed – Bob even worried that the ancient wooden beams holding up the second floor weight of carpets might collapse under the weight of the opening night throng!

My website (www.rugsoftibet.com) showing each rug, from those less than a square metre to those big enough for a spacious penthouse, has given access to interstate and overseas buyers. With relatively low overheads and a small price margin, I have been able to sell the Tibetan rugs well below prices commanded in the USA and Europe.

‘Rugs of Tibet’s stock includes a marvellous array of colours and styles, with both traditional and modern designs. On the walls are photographs of the Tibetan men and women spinning wool and at the looms, with the designs on paper attached to the looms above their heads, and various coloured balls of wool in baskets behind them. For those worried about stories of child labour at carpet factories in India and Pakistan I have also brought back photos of Tibetans’ creches for the very young children and six-year old boys playing on a vacant loom. I enjoy the great dignity and honesty of my Tibetan business associates, and the remarkably good schooling facilities for their Tibetan youngsters despite the fact they are in exile.

An added attraction of ‘Rugs of Tibet’ is a brilliant array of Pashmina shawls made from the softest cashmere wool and silk and also produced by Tibetans and imported directly from Nepal. I also have a full selection of Tibetan jewellery and other merchandise that is sold on behalf of the Australia Tibet Council. A little of every rug sale also goes to the Australia Tibet Council to help bring forward the day the Tibetans regain their freedom.

I love this business. It brings great joy to those of us in Australia who get to own the Tibetan rugs and it is also helping the Tibetans who are so proud of their beautiful and durable products going to the rest of the world. These rugs are heirlooms and can be handed from generation to generation.

Having recently returned from a visit to the Tibetan carpet workshops this year, I am aware the political crisis in Nepal is having a big impact; sales are way down and I was greeted with extra enthusiasm as the business I provide makes a significant contribution to their annual income.
But this problem for the rugmakers is a boom for my customers: I had a huge array to select from and have shipped back to Hobart the pick of them all for my customers to enjoy.

Paul Thomas