What does a 20th-century ‘salt and pepper’ rug have in common with a Ka-Sha co-ord set?

During an afternoon of conversations about textiles and travels, collector Danny Mehra pulls out his phone to produce a photograph of his latest acquisition—a small, worn textile he purchased at an auction but hasn’t yet received. “The transcript means ‘Don’t touch it. Don’t let it go’,” he explains, translating the Persian script visible on the 4×4 ft horse blanket in the image. “We had to deconstruct and reconstruct it again to really understand.” His wife, Renuka Mehra, adds, “That’s the thing about collecting. The object reveals itself to you over time.”

I’m chatting with the couple at their home in Richmond Town, Bengaluru, about the enviable collection of carpets they’ve accumulated over 40 years. In their museum-worthy home, every object tells myriad stories. Some are still waiting to be discovered.

The space itself is a collector’s dream—light streams through numerous windows, illuminating treasured pieces hung deliberately on walls. The rest of Danny’s textile bounty is stocked in his third-floor ‘basement’, some elegantly displayed, others strategically piled like textile islands for visitors to visually navigate. A corner table groans alongside a library of art books, while antique furniture punctuates the space. His two dogs, Tulu and Luri—named after carpet-making tribes, in a typical Danny Mehra touch—pad around their domain, occasionally settling on priceless artefacts with canine nonchalance.

The conversation about the aforementioned horse blanket planted the seed for this visual narrative where the Mehras’ remarkable carpet collection provided the backdrop for a series of looks by contemporary Indian designers. The resulting mash-up of 18th-century pomegranate motifs with jewel-toned silk, of undyed sheep wool against bandhej, reveals unexpected visual connections.

Like the 19th-century Caucasian Moghan rug with its distinct Crivelli stars that frames our model, who is wearing an Akaaro turtleneck layered beneath a Ka-Sha hand-beaded waistcoat. The sun-like star motif on the contemporary garment seems to continue a conversation the carpet started two centuries ago. Meanwhile, pomegranates are a recurring motif across Central Asia and China. In Mehra’s own collection they are visible in a Khotan carpet from east Turkestan (Xinjiang province, China), the fruit’s rounded form echoing the gold woven peacock on a Payal Khandwala dress. “It’s magical,” Danny says. “What you see today obviously is the present day but evokes an urge to think what must have been a thousand years ago. That transformation is magic.”

The origin story

Danny and Renuka’s journey as collectors can be traced back to their courthouse wedding in Cleveland, USA, where Renuka had travelled to study and Danny followed along. His dowry was a hundred dollars, promptly spent on a post-wedding Chinese lunch. But there was something else—a Lebanese neighbour in their building worked at a carpet shop, and Renuka’s mother thought they should get something interesting for the newlyweds. She returned with two carpets the dealer had described as “late 19th-century Moroccan”. Danny, completely unfamiliar with carpets at the time, accepted this assessment without question.

Forty years and over 2,000 acquisitions later, Danny now recognises those first purchases for what they were: neither Moroccan nor 19th-century, but rather commercial interpretations of tribal designs. “I wouldn’t advise anyone to buy those two carpets now,” Danny admits with a smile. “They were nice but in a very commercial ‘tribal’ way. They didn’t have that soul that authentic tribal carpets possess.” He explains how his understanding evolved: “The eye develops over time—by seeing more, by reading, through connections with other collectors. You start noticing the nuances—why this paisley is different from that paisley, what makes the scale unusual, the format, the colour, the imperfections…”

Those misidentified carpets, purchased as a wedding gift, sparked a passion that would define both his and Renuka’s lives.

Dialogues across time

A conversation with Danny and Renuka, who have previously worked in finance and academia, respectively, is peppered with countless stories about their travels around the world. Like one about how in Kyrgyzstan, Danny’s eager inquiries about local weaving traditions led to blank stares and, eventually, to a village near the Issyk-Kul lake where they witnessed the creation of shyrdak—carpets made of pressed wool known as namda. “The grandmother was working on a 15-ft piece,” Renuka recalls. “The process unfolds like performance art: first they dye the wool, then tufts of it are carefully arranged to create a design, almost like a 3D painting, or mosaic. Then they would make a cylinder, and four people would line up to press it for a couple of weeks until it was dense and together. Then the grandmother would edge it with black thread.”

Danny ushers me to one of his prized possessions: a magnificent Gabbeh rug with its characteristic long pile. “Look at this beauty from the Zagros mountains,” he says. “The Luri tribe weavers never dyed this wool—what you’re seeing are the natural colours of their sheep. That’s why collectors sometimes call these ‘salt and pepper’ rugs.” The primitive figures tell their own story—two humans stand amid four-legged creatures representing the sheep and goats that provided both livelihood and material. 

As our conversation draws to a close, Danny gestures toward another carpet, a shaggy piece from southern Turkey. “What we see today in these textiles—this magic that appears inorganic—is the result of everything that has happened over thousands of years. The trade, the conquests, the migrations. It’s created a beautiful alchemy in today’s culture. These designs evolved with all that has happened to them.”

In the Mehras’ home-museum, historical textiles tell stories of civilisations, trade routes, and cultural exchanges spanning continents and centuries. Meanwhile, contemporary Indian fashion creates its own narrative of innovation through traditional techniques. Through these images, these separate worlds momentarily coexist in a visual conversation that wasn’t possible before.

Creative Direction: Niyati Hirani. Photographer: Prathap Shekhar. Assistant Stylist: Ezil Malvika. Hair and Make-up Artist: Zahra Khan. Model: Anika Bogi represented by Anima Creatives