Peace Industry to Return Production to Iran
Peace Industry, San Francisco's beloved felt rug shop announces imminent plans to return production from Turkey back to Iran as soon as sanctions are lifted.
San Francisco, CA, July 16, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Peace Industry, San Francisco’s beloved felt rug shop announces imminent plans to return production from Turkey back to Iran as soon as sanctions are lifted.
When the embargo on Iranian goods was put in place in 2010, Peace Industry had already spent years struggling to develop a workshop near Isfahan, Iran. They had achieved success in saving an ancient and obscure craft that had been on the verge of extinction and created a niche market; being the only company to specialize in Iran made felt rugs. Faced with imminent closure due to the embargo, Dodd and Melina Raissnia, Peace Industry’s owners, made the difficult decision to relocate their production to another country or go out of business. Dodd boarded a plane for Istanbul and sat in a hotel room for days without any idea how he would rebuild what was lost. It was a time of great financial uncertainty and the economy was still reeling from the recession.
"Doing business in Turkey is like trying to hit a moving target. There are just constant and arbitrary rule changes we experience as foreigners. It has never been smooth. Having the rugs made in Iran again would be more than I'd ever hoped for", says Dodd.
Dodd Raissnia, founder
A friend, and fellow rug merchant in San Francisco advised opening a workshop in Konya, a historic center of felt making and an important city along the historic Silk Road. It took nearly three years of seven-day work weeks and constant struggle. Melina and the couple’s eleven year old son, joined Dodd for one of the years. However, conducting business in Turkey proved to be incredibly expensive and just down right difficult. “Doing business in Turkey is like trying to hit a moving target. There are just constant and arbitrary rule changes we experience as foreigners. It has never been smooth. Having the rugs made in Iran again would be more than I’d ever hoped for”, says Dodd.
Dodd Raissnia is a native of Iran. He learned of the tradition of felt rug making after visiting a craft shop in Tehran in 1999. The couple started importing traditional Iranian felt rugs in 2001 and then eventually opened a workshop of their own and produced rugs that were based on Melina’s designs who is a painter and graphic designer. Their store is in the Mission district of San Francisco.
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