Dover Flooring Blog
September 11th, 2015
Are Berbers Going Away?
There was a time when Berbers had a large market share in the carpet industry. Probably about 15 to 20 years ago (where does the time go?) lots of people were asking for Berber carpet. Why was this?
Well, for years consumers had been buying "trackless" carpet. This was a variation of the old plush carpets that you really don't see much anymore. Styles come and styles go and consumers were just tired of the same old thing. After all, how many different ways can you construct new carpet? Trackless carpet is called "textured" in the carpet industry. The old plushes that had a smooth, shiny finish that showed every foot print and vacuum mark were becoming passe and consumers were looking for new carpet that wouldn't show everything right after vacuuming.
So the carpet mills started making textures (trackless). Friezes became popular. Friezes are textured carpets that are really really textured.
Some people likened them to spaghetti because a heavy frieze could look like spaghetti. They didn't show foot prints or vacuum marks. Consumers loved that.
About this time, the carpet mills started to really market the Berbers. They weren't cut pile like the plushes, twists and friezes. They were different. Berbers were made in a loop construction style. This was a very high wearing style indeed! Carpets that are made in the cut pile style will wear on the tips (where the cut pile is). Because the carpet yarn was cut, then the tips would wear and fray with normal wear and tear. Berbers, on the other hand, didn't have this weakness. The top of the carpet where people walked was now a loop and hence the wear was on a the sides of the yarn, not the tips. The side of carpet yarn is almost impossible to wear through with normal residential traffic. So Berbers were very high wearing.
Also, because of the loop construction, the Berber carpet would be very resilient. As the loops were trod upon, the loop would press down and then bounce back up when walked off. So Berbers were high wearing and resilient. Both good traits.
Some cons to Berber carpets was the fact that carpet seams would show more than on a cut pile carpet and the loops could get caught, pull and run. So why are Berber carpets going the way of the dodo bird? Well, really, I don't know......
Where once I had probably 25% of my carpet samples in the Berber style, now I probably have 5%. People are just not asking for Berbers much these days. As Berber styles get discontinued by the mills, they don't replace them with new Berber styles. So as they get discontinued, my supply of Berber samples just keeps shrinking. Now I have very few and most of them are solid color Berbers. The flecked Berbers are almost gone.
So if you want a Berber carpet, you may want to get it soon as the Berber style is slowly going away.....of course, it'll come back around in 10 years with a slightly different slant. After all, who would have thought that the shag would ever come back, eh? LOL
