From Furniture Making to Carpets - by Andrew Haughton
As we prepare to set off on a new chapter, Andrew reflects on his own journey.
The Nomads Tent has been a destination and a landmark at 21 St Leonard’s Lane for many people over more than 40 years. Now we must say goodbye to this Aladdin’s Cave, as so many of you called it. This Aladdin is off to pastures new this summer.
For myself it has been the greatest honour of my life to be part of this enterprise. I’d like to share a little of the journey that brought me here, and what's next.
I joined The Tent in 2008 after a rather varied path. My first trade was making furniture. My grandfather, Peter Luling, (a New Yorker who moved to Surrey with his paints and pencils, some nice antiques and a few rugs from his American parents’ home) opened a shop selling antiques in Pimlico and later in Tunbridge Wells. I helped mend bits and pieces for him while I studied at the London College of Furniture, eventually going on to open a little business in a converted carriage house in Wimbledon.
For twenty years I plied my craft as a designer and maker of furniture, first in London then Edinburgh where I opened a small workshop in a Dundas Street basement. This was leased to me on very generous terms by Nancy Duncan, owner of the iconic Unicorn Antiques. Among my first customers were Matilda Mitchell and her husband, the late Douglas Hall, founding director of the Gallery of Modern Art. I noted in their Northumberland Place flat some very handsome Anatolian kilims which Matilda proudly told me came from The Nomads Tent.
I enjoyed some fabulous commissions but in the early 1990s I closed the workshop, and, for a year or so, I did a variety of work, including helping my friend David Bellak in The Mihrab Gallery, his rug shop on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. One day a friend returned from a US trip and gave me the contact details of a man she had met there, Shari Shabab, a Jewish Iranian carpet dealer with a huge store on Maddison Avenue, downtown Manhattan. Shari wanted someone in the UK to find good, large antique carpets. Exaggerating more than a little, I convinced him I was the man for the job. So began a whirlwind of driving around the country seeking out and photographing carpets, noting every detail and blemish, FedEx-ing the prints to Shari and waiting for his call. He had a big New York voice and would bluntly denounce the ones he didn’t like or tell me to get a better price. I’d collect the carpets he approved, drive them back to my second floor Edinburgh flat to pack them up and organise the export papers etc.
It was a crash course during which I became deeply attracted to the mystique and glamour of the world of Oriental carpets and formed some good connections with real experts in the field. I joined with a Glasgow Oriental rug business which had been founded in the early 20th century by another Jewish family, particularly specialising in restoring old rugs in Waterloo Street. By the time I joined the business, RL Rose Ltd was in a huge antiques warehouse on Yorkhill Quay. They soon opened a gallery in Howe Street, Edinburgh. During twelve years in the heart of The New Town, my love of carpets continued to grow, but I became impatient for something more, without knowing quite what!
One day I heard about an exhibition ‘Treasures of the Silk Road’ at The Nomads Tent. I had heard of this place and knew it was a bit different from the rug shops I had come across. And I had not forgotten Matilda Mitchell’s firm loyalty to Rufus’ shop. But nothing prepared me for what I felt upon entering. As I stood among the colours and textures, conjured from ancient nomadic ways, imbued with authenticity and beautifully arranged, I felt profoundly moved. I thought ‘this is what rugs are really all about’.
A few years passed before I wrote to the owner of The Nomads Tent, Rufus Reade, asking for a job in his shop. We met and he did, thankfully, invite me to join his team. I started on a day when everyone was very busy preparing for an exhibition. I barely caught my breath from then on, so full on was the work there! Within a few weeks, a huge container arrived from India, stuffed with furniture and artefacts, followed shortly by a mountain of 60kg bales of rugs from Iran and kilims from India. And no sooner had we caught up with labelling and photographing thousands of pieces of new stock than it was time for our Road Shows.
These shows reached to the far corners of the UK. Started by Rufus in the 1980s, they were hosted by incredibly hardworking homeowners who made them into a kind of exotic pop-up festival, providing a unique sociable shopping experience, with soup, coffee and cake alongside The Nomads Tent’s treasures.
As many of you know, at the Tent we put on exhibitions exploring and celebrating the people who actually made what we sold, their culture and traditions. With these exhibitions, numbering well over 100 since we began, we presented related talks, occasionally symposiums, workshops and concerts. All this kept the place vibrant and busy. It has been an amazing and enriching experience for me personally.
In the 1970s the West ‘discovered’ the world of tribal rugs and crafts at a time when such ways of life were beginning to disintegrate, beguiled by that same West’s rapacious materialism. One aspect particularly relevant to The Nomads Tent and other similar traders, is that as old nomadic ways were abandoned so were the objects which furnished their tents and their way of life. The markets were rapidly filled with wonderful tribal bags, kilims, and rugs that suited a new taste in the West. People were beginning to pall at soulless and mass produced objects. As noted by, among others, travellers on The Magic Bus, the East had an answer; here was great beauty in simple objects, made in harmony with the nature and not harmful to the Earth.
For forty-three years the Nomads Tent has been a place to find such objects, but public perception and interest has changed and we must too. I have decided the way to adapt to such changes is to focus mainly on supplying rugs in a smaller space. I have projects still to be completed and customers’ rugs to look after. I hope to pursue my interest in rugs and textiles with others. In the new shop there will be the latest new rugs woven in Afghanistan and Iran, and a few old and antique pieces. And there’ll be a table in the corner, tea and biscuits on offer and a big welcome sign on the door!
Meanwhile for a few more months, myself, Susie who always makes the shop beautiful and welcoming, and Sarah who has designed this newsletter and runs our office brilliantly, will be here, at Number 21, looking forward to your visits.
To all those who have generously given their creative spirit and energy to The Nomads Tent and helped to make it all happen, the drama, the warmth, the colour, the buzz, and the sheer JOY – Thank you!
