Threads of Design: The History of Oriental Weavers Hospitality
Join us as we explore the intersection of history, craftsmanship, and culture, uncovering the secrets behind the design-led approach that sets Oriental Weavers Hospitality apart. From the roots of the American carpet story to the challenges of the modern market, each episode unravels the threads that weave together the story, craft, and education integral to Oriental Weavers' success.
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Speaker 1:
Welcome to The Design Board, a podcast created by the team at UpSpring that focuses on design, development and everything in-between. We invite innovators in our industry and explore topics that support your growth in every way. The Design Board is a proud member of SURROUND, a podcast network from SANDOW Design Group, featuring the architecture and design industry's premier shows. Check it out at surroundpodcast.com.
Susan Fernandez:
Welcome everyone to The Design Board, a podcast by UpSpring that focuses on design, development, and everything in between. I am your host, Susan Fernandez, and today I am joined by Gavin McDowell, President of Americas at Oriental Weavers Hospitality. Gavin has over 30 years of progressive creative designing and executive level partnering in the woven Axminster and printed textile industry. Gavin joined Oriental Weavers Hospitality in 2016 as a voice for design on a global platform. Thanks so much for joining us, Gavin.
Gavin McDowell:
Hi, good afternoon. How are you?
Susan Fernandez:
I am doing well, and I'm so excited you're here.
Gavin McDowell:
Thank you for having me. I'm excited too.
Susan Fernandez:
So let's start with the basics. Can you provide an overview of OW Hospitality for our listers who may not be familiar?
Gavin McDowell:
Sure, I'd love to. So Oriental Weavers Hospitality, or OWH as we refer to it, is part of the Oriental Weavers group of businesses. Oriental Weavers is a global manufacturer of machine-made carpets and area rugs, and our hospitality arm is a very small part of that global organization.
Susan Fernandez:
Gavin, could you start at the most fundamental knowledge that someone needs for this conversation? Let's take it down to the basics. What are the different types of carpet and what is the use case for each?
Gavin McDowell:
All right, let's see if I can get this right. So you've got machine woven Axminster, you've got machine tufted, you've got printed, and you've got hand tufted. Those are the four main products that are out there. So machine woven Axminster, the pattern is the face, the fluffy bit of the top, that's the pattern, and it's part of the weave structure. So you've got your face yarn, which is your pattern, trapped with warps and wefts, and the backing. That's all one piece. A machine tufted carpet, that grew out of the textile industry, and so it has a sewing component to it. So tufts are stitched into a primary backing. That primary packing is then glued to a secondary backing, so it's several pieces glued together. Printed carpet is a machine tufted carpet base, and the pattern is applied on the top with a very sophisticated printing process, so it's [inaudible 00:02:59] jacket on top.
And then hand tufted, the key is in the word, it's a handmade product. And that is not a machine made product, it's very much the design interpretation is visual. So in a machine woven Axminster, the pattern is digitally... Every tuft has a place in the weave. In a hand tufted, that's not the case. In a hand tufted, the image is visually translated by the hand tufter. So he or she will visually translate the pattern from an image, and they draw the outline on a piece of cloth that's stretched over a frame and then that is then paint by numbers, kind of. So you draw the outline of the pattern on this big frame, and then with a tufting gun, which is this tufting gun that holds several yarns in it and you can [inaudible 00:03:46] that through, and then you build up the pattern that way with technique. And then of course it's carved or it's hand cut or whatever to create the effects, but it's much more of a handmade product.
That's technically the four different types of product that are out there, for the most part. I mean, there are other side tangent products, but those are the four main products.
Susan Fernandez:
So how would you describe your approach to carpet design?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, that's a really complicated question. I would say that we are a design led hospitality team because my background is design, that's what I've done most of my career. We really approach the design process very intentionally.
Susan Fernandez:
How would you describe OW Hospitality's approach to integrated carpet design? What does that mean?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, it means two things, Susan. The design process with our woven product is quite labor-intensive. The design is actually part of the weave structure of the product, so understanding the design process with a woven is really important. So we're very intentional with the design process and we're very married to the product and how it's made. We work in a vertically integrated environment, so the manufacturing lifecycle of the product, from raw bales of wool to finished product going out, we're very engaged in that whole process. So managing the raw bales of wool coming in, washing it, carting it, spinning it into yarn, dyeing the yarn, cradling the loom, weaving it, finishing the product, coming off the loom, and then shipping it. It's all done in one footprint. So we have an amazing sustainable story there in how we manage the lifecycle and also manage the quality control of the product through as well.
Susan Fernandez:
And that's a really very different approach for the craft of woven carpets, is that correct?
Gavin McDowell:
Yes. I love the word craft. What we do is a crafted process, and the art of designing for woven Axminster is a craft. Part of your earlier question about how do we do it, or how do we manage it? Well, we have a curated team of Axperts, we call it internally, Axperts, that people with knowledge, with legacy knowledge of the product, whether that's weavers or dyers or designers, even operations, people with legacy knowledge of how the lifecycle works, how the product is made, that's all about craft.
Susan Fernandez:
And for those listeners who haven't yet checked it out, you should go to the website, owhospitality.com, and take a look at some of their designs and you'll really see how different they are. They're absolutely stunning. So with this vertical integration, and you have a long history, and you have a unique story in American carpet industry, so how does understanding this history contribute to the company's design philosophy?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, I think context is super important, Susan, context with the product, and America has a unique story with carpet. Woven carpet came to America originally and was focused in the northeast part of the country, so New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And then at a time in history, there was incentives to move weaving south, and it married both the sewing industry that was prevalent in the south, and the machine tufted products were born. So the context for that is super important in the US because I find that a lot of people just don't know the story, they don't know the history of carpet, and how the machine tufted industry grew out of the woven industry. It's a big part of understanding how we think about carpet, not just in the hospitality environment, but in the residential and contract worlds as well in the US.
Susan Fernandez:
So how do you leverage those cultural aspects of the US market in your design and marketing strategies?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, first of all, I would say there's definitely a place for all of it. I think understanding the difference is a big part of our approach, and a big part of my approach specifically. Because I come from a world where woven is very well understood, I grew up in Northern Ireland, grew up in that European culture, where woven was very much a staple and part of the everyday understanding about carpet, and that's not so much the case here in the US. So education is a big part of presenting the product to customers, and a lot of our customers today are a younger demographic, so that late twenties to mid-thirties. A very exciting demographic, but a demographic nonetheless that doesn't necessarily have legacy knowledge of product. So teaching about product and how they're different and the attributes of them are really, really important. And particularly with regard to how the product's designed, I think nowhere else is that more important than in an Axminster product, because the design is actually part of the weave structure so understanding how it's made is vital to successful design.
Susan Fernandez:
In the most basic level, we're talking about the difference between woven and tufted?
Gavin McDowell:
Woven, tufted, and printed really.
Susan Fernandez:
And printed?
Gavin McDowell:
Yes.
Susan Fernandez:
Okay. So I think that makes a lot of sense, that certainly America is much more about the tufted carpet.
Gavin McDowell:
There's a lot more choice here, and all carpets are not made the same way. And so I find I'm customer facing a lot of my time in my role, which I love, and what I really find interesting is that there's a lot of people just don't know the differences. And they're not really even nuanced differences, they're quite dramatic differences, between how one might approach a design for a printed product versus a woven product, for example. They really are very different and the success of the design is really connected to how the product is made, particularly in our woven environment.
Susan Fernandez:
Yeah. Can you walk us through some of those differences? Because that goes into what my next question was going to be, is that how does this American mindset influence how OW Hospitality has a relationship with customers and specifiers? And it sounds like there's a lot of education there.
Gavin McDowell:
Well, there's a lack of education, I would say, just generally, and I'm not sure that there's very much emphasis put on the product knowledge, and I think depending on who you talk to, there has been a bit of a brain drain from the industry, and that's a terminology that's quite well-used in our circles today. With economic turndowns, a lot of legacy knowledge has left the industry and has since been replaced with a younger demographic. So when it comes to specifying product and knowing what to specify, there's a big opportunity to train and educate. So that's a big part of what I do when I'm in front of the customer, whether it be with CEOs, our continuing education unit that we do, or whether it's lunch and learns, or any type of customer facing opportunity where there is an appetite to learn. We have a big emphasis on that, teaching about how the product works and how we design for it and how to be successful in design, because that's what we sell, we sell design.
Susan Fernandez:
So talking about this American lack of, do you think it's like a lack of education of just the whole carpet industry, or is it of the difference between the craft, or are you looking at a bigger issue in America?
Gavin McDowell:
I think it's a great question, and I think it's both. I think that understanding, well, the craft, let's take Axminster just as a product by itself, the design process is a crafted process. I often relate it to a builder, or say somebody who's building a brick wall, that's a craft. Or someone who's doing drywall in a building, there's a craft to that. There's a trade that you learn, a craft that you perfect, and Axminster design is very much about that. It's a very pixelated product, every tuft has a place in the weave, and the way we draw our images, the way we bend our lines and twist our curves, that craft of drafting we talk about is learned. It's something that you learn and it takes years to perfect. And with a printed product or a machine tufted product, the accuracy is not as necessary because how those products are made.
With Axminster, every tuft is seen in the weave, it's placed intentionally, and you can't distract from it, or you can't hide it, it's very visible. The yarn is dyed separately before it's woven so the yarn has color integrity all the way through. That's what I said earlier about the design as part of the weave structure. So it's very, very tied to the manufacturing process and the craft of learning how to draw on a grid, in effect, is something that takes years to perfect. For me, I remember starting over 30 years ago, we drew on squared paper and we mixed paints by hand and we painted, with gouache, the patterns on the squared paper and then translated that through punch cards to the wheeling limb. That whole process has been completely digitized now. And Photoshop, for example, is a software that has been adopted that was never really designed for the woven industry, so there's definitely a craft in understanding how the product works and how the design relates to how it's made. So that's very much, we're dealing with that reality in a broader conversation where there are other choices in America that are very popular.
Susan Fernandez:
And that is what accounts for that really rich, detailed, exquisite nature of your carpets. I was looking at one of the projects that was inspired by a river, and it almost seemed to move. It was really interesting, and you can only get that with those fibers that have that color integrity all the way through and is planned this way.
Gavin McDowell:
Well, integrity is a really good word. I love the word craft and integrity, and those both go hand in hand with a woven Axminster. I say this in front of my customers, and when I'm customer facing, there is an integrity with a woven Axminster that's hard to find in other products, because the pattern is woven in, as we like to say. It's not added on or stitched to, it's actually woven through. So the yarn, if you have a red yarn or a blue yarn, that yarn is dyed in a separate process. The wool is dyed all the way through, it's brought to the loom, it's threaded through the back of the loom to the front, it's cut and placed in the weave structure. So there's an incredible integrity.
The design is part of the actual product. And so that's an amazing, unique thing about woven Axminster. And the color is rich and it has a very long lifespan. We jokingly say Axminster will ugly out before it wears out, and people in European countries have had Axminster on their floor for 20, 30 plus years, and if it's well taken care of, it will last a long time. Of course, that has a huge sustainable narrative today. We've always had a sustainable story in Axminster, but it's never more important than the conversations we're having today. So it is a very, very rich, it's a beautiful, it's a luxurious product, and it's wonderful. It's a wonderful product.
Susan Fernandez:
It really is something that, once you see it, you absolutely get it. So there's such a piece of education about this, but if I'm a designer and I'm working on a hospitality project and I come to you, how does this work? You have to educate me as to why this is different and better. But then when I start, do I hand my drawings over to you? Do you come to me with ideas? How does this happen?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, it's great. It's a great question. Every project that we do has a custom story. Everything we do is custom to start with, and every project has a story. And the narrative is presented to us by the interior design firm, or the architectural practice, or whoever it is we're working with. And then we collaborate together with the client and we build around their narrative. Today, unlike years ago, the client had a very strong knowledge of the product and knew what it could do and how to achieve the effect. That's not so much the case today. So there's much more responsibility placed on our internal design teams to really know how to manipulate the pattern, create depths and shadow, texture, and really build the story.
So to your comment about the river, the pattern that looked like a river, Axminster, there's like a blank canvas on the floor, it's art on the floor, and we paint on the floor with a woven crafted understanding. And we build collaboratively with the client, and we take the lead as much as we're encouraged to do, by the client, to build around their narrative and relay for them back what we believe their vision is for the carpet. Sometimes it's a very quick turnaround and sometimes it's much more complicated depending on the complexity of the narrative that they're trying to build. Sometimes the patterning is much more simple and graphic, and sometimes it's very complicated, lots of depths and layer into it. So it can be any and all of that.
And also, we can build all kinds of textural detailing into the patterns. We can make it look like there's loop in the pattern when there's not. We can make it look like there's multiple layers of patterning going on. It's an amazing product. It's a wonderful medium. I talk about it being like oil painting or watercolor painting. It's another medium just like that. And understanding your medium and feeling comfortable and confident with your medium is vital in the woven world to having designed success.
Susan Fernandez:
So how do you balance that fine art aspect and the traditional craftsmanship with the demand from the industry? They always want to know what's next. They want innovation. How are you doing that?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, that's another great question. I try not to pay too much attention to trends. I think over the years, I've learned that I would much prefer to set my own trends and set our own trends. So I will certainly play some kind of awareness to trending out there and of course need to be aware of what's going on, but I think that has really changed. I would say, as a business, we are not only changing the way we do design, but we're changing the way we think about design, as much as anything. And so I follow trending to a degree, and then I stop that. And then I focus on things that we are involved in as a global team because our design teams around the world collaborate once a year on some group work, and we present that at various points through the year to the customer's ideas and starting off points for projects. I think that's far more important that we embrace the collective global attitudes with each other and flourish with creativity that way than to be married to particular trends that may or may not be out there. I think it's a fine line really, between being married to trending and setting your own trends, and I think we've had much more success when we lead the charts as opposed to following.
Susan Fernandez:
That makes a lot of sense when you think about your deep understanding of this medium that anything is possible and we look towards our artists to lead us, not to be reactive, right?
Gavin McDowell:
Absolutely. And I think that's really true of this younger demographic who are making decisions and are choosing who to work with and what to specify. My experience has been that younger demographic, they want to know why and how, they're not so tied the way we were several years ago to trending, oh, the color of the year, or what's trending here or there. There's less emphasis in that because the world has become a much smaller place. People are traveling much more easily. Our clients are from all over the world. Yes, we're based in the US and our market here is focused in the US, but our clients are not necessarily from the US. I'm not from the US. A good 50% of my team is from somewhere else. So there's amazing opportunity to be creative collectively as a team.
And so we just don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about trending, certainly pay some nod to it, but I think we lead the charge, and our customers expect that. They look at us as knowledgeable, as experts in our craft, and particularly with color, when we're working on coloring, they may provide us with color palettes that they fully accept that we may tweak them or change them out because we know how it might work better, if we change this one color or made a small change here or there, it might make the result better. There's much more willingness to let us make those kinds of decisions. It's a very different world as a carpet designer today than even just 10 years ago, then there was a lot more of those decisions made for us. Now we're expected to make those decisions for our customers.
Susan Fernandez:
So when you talk about the emerging customer for you, or this new generation of customers, we're talking about millennials and Gen Z, correct?
Gavin McDowell:
Correct. Yes.
Susan Fernandez:
Yeah, they have an incredible desire for knowledge and also authenticity, which is another word I would associate with OW Hospitality. It goes along with that integrity and craftsmanship, and I think there's a definite thirst in the market for that.
Gavin McDowell:
Absolutely. I love the word authentic, and we've actually been described as authentic by several of our customers, I've heard them refer to us that way, particularly in how we present ourselves on social media. Before COVID, but more especially during and since, we have promoted ourselves via social media because we had no other way of doing it, we couldn't meet with people. And so to keep things moving, we upped our game a little bit on social media, but we didn't do it in a high-tech way, we authentically presented who we are.
And I think that if you work with Oriental Weavers, generally that's what you come away with. We are an authentic global team who are growing brand and doing that together. And that's been one of the greatest joys of my career, is working for a company where you feel that way, where you feel like you are part of something different, where you're helping to grow something different, and there's the facility to do that. So I think we truly are authentic and in the relationships that we have with our clients and how we do the process of woven is a very authentic experience.
Susan Fernandez:
With that, can you tell me a little bit about your environmental story? And the reason I'm asking is that when we talk to designers, of course, one of the big things that has been in the American tradition is the toxins within the product from all the glues that are used, as well as clogging the landfill. So those are the environmental concerns that we hear. How do you address those?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, the big thing about Axminster is that 80% of the fiber is wool. So it's got a large portion of the yarn content that is natural fiber, and wool is a protein-based fiber so it will completely break down over time. So that's one of our biggest legacy talking points really. Like I said before, we've always had a sustainable story for that reason. Our yarn is 80% wool, 20% nylon. The nylon is in there to offer a little bit of stability to the wool, but it's largely a natural fiber based product.
And then in terms of how we manage sustainability, we are a MindClick leader, and MindClick is a process that many manufacturers go through every year, it's an auditing process of all of your processes at your factory, so how much carbon dioxide, oxygen, electricity, what do you do with the wastewater from your dye house? And our sustainable story is very personal. So our manufacturing headquarters is in Cairo, Egypt, and we have a large campus, and a large portion of it is green space. And so practical, authentic ways to deal with sustainability there is to recirculate the wastewater from the dye house to water our plants. We have a massive tree planting program because Oriental Weavers has an investment arm, a real estate arm, and so there's a lot of planting that has to go on. So we have a massive tree planting program, tree farms that support that. The solar part. We have solar panels now installed in some of our buildings in Egypt.
I think the takeaway about sustainability for us, it's practical, it's authentic, and it makes sense for us. So I would say that about it. And I think the MindClick portion of it speaks specifically to our responsibility here in the US because that's a US-based program, but our partners around the world are facilitating the sustainable narrative in practical ways for their regions.
Susan Fernandez:
Can you give us the definition of MindClick for those who are not familiar?
Gavin McDowell:
MindClick rates the environmental health performance of manufacturers and their products. That's the technical definition. It's a way for Marriott to navigate manufacturers and vendors for their projects and their properties. The idea is that they will support vendors who are MindClick approved.
Susan Fernandez:
I guess that's something that designers will increasingly look for, that type of certification or what your rating is.
Gavin McDowell:
Yeah, I think it's one of those initiatives that's still getting momentum, still bringing on momentum in the US. It's still a fairly young thing. Several of our competitors are MindClick members, but not all. And many of the major ones are, but not everybody that's in the marketplace, and it's a way to be accountable, I guess, in the manufacturing environment. The tricky thing for Oriental Weavers is we're a global company, so we already have a very active sustainable story, because the parent company is so engaged around the world with major customers who all require these ratings. So we are already doing it, but the MindClick initiative here in the US speaks to our hospitality arm specifically here.
Susan Fernandez:
So weaving carpet is an ancient craft. What does the future hold? What do you see for this?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, I definitely see more and more woven Axminster because 80% of the yarn is a natural fiber. And I think the idea of Axminster wearing longer and lasting longer is really important now, especially with this younger demographic, that means something to them. I think, just to go back to that demographic again, there's a tremendous integrity with how that younger demographic thinks, and they really are super engaged in wanting to know why. And so the CEU that I teach gives a global perspective on carpet, it talks about how it started, how it moves through Europe, came to the US, and then what we did with it. People love to know that, and they don't know it because they're not taught it. Many people aren't taught it. So there's an appetite for it and I think understanding what Axminster can do and how it really is relevant, I think that's another word I would use, it's a very relevant product in our conversation today. Where maybe other products became the go-to or became the norm in this culture, I think that Axminster should have and will have a very positive future, because of how it speaks to the environment that we're living in today.
So I see more of it used. I see the potential of it being used in other applications, not necessarily just hospitality environments. I can see it being used in crossover markets as well. It's just about education. It's understanding what it is. It's also had a legacy of being thought of as a higher cost product, but that's not the case anymore, and it's certainly not the case for us. So we can be very competitive with other types of product in the marketplace. So understanding what it is and what it can do and knowing how it can be very competitive also provides an opportunity for a very healthy future.
Susan Fernandez:
Gavin, where can listeners find out more information about OW Hospitality and stay updated on the latest news and releases?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, I'm so glad you asked that, Susan, because what I tell customers is the best way to understand who we are and to see what we're doing is to follow us on social media. So Instagram is @OWHcreative, or LinkedIn and Facebook at OW Hospitality. But Instagram is where it's so interesting globally because in the US we live in Instagram, in the UK it's more LinkedIn, and overseas in different parts of the world it's different platforms. So we try to do the same content on all three, and we're very intentional about how we present on social media, and we are authentically doing it. So you'll see latest installations of projects, you'll see lunch and learns, or CEUs that we've been giving, you'll see training schedules that we do. It's very hands-on, it's very this is who we are. It's the best way. Of course, our website, owhospitality.com, but the best way to see who we are day-to-day and up-to-date is @OWHcreative on Instagram.
Susan Fernandez:
Can designers come to the campus and see it in action?
Gavin McDowell:
Well, we manufacture in Cairo, Egypt, so yes, and we do take customers. We've had many customers. We would love to take people to Egypt. It's an amazing facility there. We do have rug manufacturing for the residential arm in Dalton, Georgia, where our US hospitality design and operations team are based. And we do bring customers up to Dalton, yes. We would love to do that. We'd love to show off the design process and some of the weaving looms that we have in Dalton. Yeah, that would be wonderful. Reach out.
Susan Fernandez:
Thank you so much for your time.
Gavin McDowell:
Thank you. It's a pleasure. I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for listening in with us today. We hope you leave inspired by the ideas in today's episode. For more, follow UpSpring on LinkedIn and Instagram. And don't forget to check out the amazing lineup of shows brought to you by the SURROUND Podcast Network at surroundpodcast.com.