Rug Passport
Rug Passport
Every Thibault Van Renne hand-knotted carpet carries its own passport — a private record of the piece, the people who made it, and the materials it was made from. Two physical objects mark each carpet:
What every TVR carpet carries
- A holographic authenticity label, sewn into the carpet itself, with a hidden message. The label is unique to its piece and unforgeable. Since 2014, every TVR carpet leaves the atelier with one — see Innovation 2014 for the story.
- A QR-code certificate linked to a private passport page. Scanning the QR brings the current owner to the carpet's record: the collection, the materials, the dimensions, the production origin, and (where applicable) the project it was commissioned for.
The passport page itself is not public. Each carpet's record is visible only to the person holding the QR code — usually the owner, sometimes the interior designer or architect who commissioned the piece. That is the point: the certificate belongs to the carpet, not to the internet.
What the passport records
For each TVR hand-knotted carpet, the passport holds the following fields where they apply:
- Collection and design name (for example, LEGENDS — Tenby; or a one-off commission name)
- Dimensions (length × width in centimetres, and total area in square metres)
- Materials: which wool, which silk, whether Allo nettle is blended in, whether real 18-carat gold wire was used (see Innovation 2018)
- Production origin: which of our four regions wove the carpet (Nepal, India/Rajasthan, Kashmir, or the Afghanistan-Pakistan corridor — see Our Story for which region does what)
- Photographs of the finished piece
- Designed for: where applicable, the name of the residence, project, or commissioning party
- Certificate text, signed by the atelier — Thibault Van Renne BV, Evergem, Belgium
Why a passport at all
A hand-knotted carpet is the kind of object a family keeps for decades. Two generations into a piece, the original purchase paperwork is often gone, and the owner may know the carpet is "a real TVR" but not be able to prove it. The passport solves three things at once:
- Authenticity — proof, on demand, that the carpet is what it appears to be. Important for insurance, important on resale, important for the next generation
- Traceability — which region, which materials, which year. This matters more in hand-knotted carpets than in almost any other category, because the materials and the origin determine what the carpet is
- Repair — when a carpet comes back to our repair station in the Belgian atelier decades later, the passport record gives us the materials, the dye notes, and the design chart to match the original — invisibly
How the system works in practice
- The holographic label is sewn in at the end of the production process (after washing, drying, stretching, hand-carving — see the ten production crafts)
- The QR code is paired to the carpet's serial number in our record system at the same time
- When the carpet ships, the owner receives the QR alongside the piece. The QR is the key — losing it does not lose the carpet's authenticity, but it does mean a new QR has to be issued from our records, which we will do on request
- The label and the QR record together form the passport. Both belong to the carpet for as long as the carpet exists
See also
- Innovation 2014 — the holographic authenticity label — why we built it
- Craftsmanship — knot densities, time on the loom, what each carpet records contains
- Materials — every fibre that may appear on a passport
- Sustainability — repair station — how the passport supports lifetime repair
The passport is the simplest part of TVR's commitment that a hand-knotted carpet should be repairable, traceable, and provable across generations. It is also one of the quietest. The carpet does the work; the passport just keeps the record straight.
— Thibault Van Renne, Founder