Montage: 27 Rooms with Boucherouite Rugs

What is a boucherouite rug you ask? Boucherouite rugs (pronounced boo-shay-REET) have been a thing for a while, infesting design blogs and Pinterest for well over a year. They’re the colorful Moroccan rugs that seem to have replaced the now ubiquitous Moroccan Ben Ourain rugs that are ivory with sparse black diamond-shape markings.

The New York Times published a piece about boucherouite rugs in 2010, though it was an art review of the show “Rags to Richesse: Rugs From Morocco” at the Cavin-Morris Gallery, not a decor story. According to the NYT article, “boucherouite” means torn and reused clothing. Boucherouite rugs, the author points out, are really just a variation on the “humble rag rug” made by semi-nomadic Berbers. (Berbers, by the way, are an indigenous people of North Africa.)

Apparently, the style is relatively new, growing out of the collision of global interest in Berber culture and design and a scarcity of wool, given that Berbers have become increasingly less nomadic, herding fewer sheep, and producing reduced quantities of wool. In a resourceful turn, weavers began adding recycled fabric and less expensive, un-naturally dyed, brightly colored synthetic fibers into the mix. The results are celebratory.

Here are 27 rooms with boucherouite rugs (and boucherouite style rugs), and a little shopping widget at the end, for those who must have one now.