Bhadohi, India

The Final Cut.

feat. — Aditya Burman


The Final Cut.

Finishing a product, especially when it comes to textiles, is often seen as a quest for perfection. Not so for Aditya Burman, a 59-year-old artisan who individually clips, shears, and sculpts a rug’s surface after it comes off the loom. “My job is not to make the rug perfect,” explains Aditya. “My job is to make it beautiful. Sometimes, those are not the same thing.”

Aditya speaks to a growing textural trend we think of as 'perfectly imperfect'; surfaces that look and feel deliberately distressed, striated, and sometimes decidedly uneven. Eschewing the aesthetic of mass-produced flawlessness in favor of the patina of individuality.

To achieve this prized aesthetic, Aditya first scans the rug for the inevitable loose threads. After snipping them one-by-one, his job becomes more nuanced, more involved, more individualistic. For certain collections, like Elixir, he hand-sculpts the surface, which accentuates the pattern with contrasting high and low textures. For other collections, like Lucid, he oxidizes the rug, distressing the design to a point where it’s nearly gone. A faded permeation of use and love; an individuality that makes each piece ours and ours alone.
My job is not to make the rug perfect. My job is to make it beautiful. Sometimes, those are not the same thing. Aditya Burman
Unlike every other step in the rug-making process, Aditya has no blueprint to follow, and no how-to manual to absorb. There’s not a singular way to shear a surface down or fade a pattern. Variance from rug-to-rug is not only expected but generally appreciated. It’s the entire point, and a big part of the charm.

Aditya must rely on his intuition and experience, both of which are highly developed after over three decades in the industry, curating and ultimately creating uniqueness. Like his work, Aditya is a true original, and one-of-a-kind.
Variance from rug-to-rug is not only expected but generally appreciated. It’s the entire point, and a big part of the charm.

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