Magic carpets

If the name doesn't give it away, one glance at the open shopfront makes the speciality of this shop clear - carpets.

Carpets in various styles and colours line the walls and are stacked in squares. There are carpets of every size, and from every region in Asia. And each one here is discounted.

CarpetBuyer Rug Warehouse, on the 17th floor of Horizon Plaza, stocks everything from Persian, tribal, nomad and Tibetan carpets, to items in simple contemporary styles. Heena Mir, head of corporate sales and marketing at CarpetBuyer, says the store usually stocks newly made carpets, even if created with traditional patterns, but that recent months it has started to stock older carpets.

'We generally have everyday carpets, but we have now started offering older, finer carpets. These new collections are attracting customers who are very knowledgeable about carpets, as they can appreciate the older pieces,' Mir says.

Mir has worked in carpeting for 25 years, with experience in fine, antique, new and old Persians, while Nadeem Butt, who established CarpetBuyer in 2003, comes from a family that has been in the business for 40 years. Butt has global knowledge of carpets, but especially handmade wool or wool and silk pieces from the mainland, Iran, Pakistan, India, Tibet, the United States and Europe.