Lorena Canals, from the home garage to billing 10 million with her handmade rugs

It all started in a garage and with a determination born from the everyday: to get a washable rug for her daughters' room. 25 years ago, there were no options on the market, but willpower prevailed and Lorena Canals set out to create what was the world's first washable rug. A quarter of a century later, the company named after the designer sells in more than 70 countries and expects to reach 10 million euros in turnover this year with its home textile products.

"I usually take the more complicated path; I like challenges," summarizes the designer. That's how she became determined to get that first washable rug, researching materials and techniques on her own and without prior experience in the design sector. And she found the material, and she found the technique: cut pile cotton. She then researched where this cotton was produced, and arrived in the Indian region of Haryana, a cradle of artisans.

After getting that first handmade washable rug, she started producing more in India, something that grew in crescendo until in 2011 she took the leap to open her own factory in the same region. The opening came after the firm committed to the internationalization of its handmade designs, with an outward look that came with the 2008 financial crisis, as a result of which Canals went to Germany to set up her first international fair: "Crises have sharpened me and allowed me to learn a lot," she explains from her studio and showroom in Sant Just Desvern.

The company has its own factory in India and warehouses in Asia, Europe, and the United States

In the factory in India, more than 120 artisans hand-sew each of the brand's pieces, in processes that can take days due to the complexity of some of the designs, such as an interactive children's rug with several levels of fabrics with marine motifs that "only two people in the entire factory know how to make." Most of the artisans are women, employed in a "European factory" located in the urban core, and situated next to a solidarity project promoted by Canals, a center for minors in vulnerable situations to whom they offer food and education. Opened in 2012, it serves up to a hundred children and adolescents daily, with a vocation for continuity: "Now we are paying for five of them to go to university."

From its factory and warehouses in India, Barcelona, and New Jersey, Lorena Canals reaches more than 70 countries. And it does so through various channels: direct sales with its website, through other online sellers, distributors who market it exclusively in third countries, and stores where the brand's products are sold, present in establishments of recognized prestige including Harrods in London.

The company currently has 17 distributors, and is working to open up to new markets, with a special focus on Asia, and with South Korea and Japan in its sights. All without displacing the factory in India from the center, with which the designer maintains daily coordination and to which she travels with her team at least once a year for several weeks: "I'm a factory rat, I love it."

In addition to focusing on expanding its internationalization, Lorena Canals aims to strengthen the firm's home line, which ranges from rugs to cushions, poufs, and decorative accessories. "The kids line comes naturally to me, and in home we plan a major expansion." These lines are added to the production of specific and custom pieces for clients such as hotels and other establishments, from an artistic perspective. "I always end up with art in between, and it's because I have an artist inside, and in the end it comes out," reveals Canals, who expresses this artistic facet in her designs and also in abstract creations that she shapes with wool and cotton: "When I want to rest, I design."

These personal designs and works of artistic dimension were shown for the first time at the brand's 25th anniversary celebration, where the protagonists were dozens of large balls of yarn and a cake over two meters high made with 200 rugs. Following in the wake of this artistic trend, the brand regularly collaborates with artists, including Edgar Plans, Donna Wilson, Regina Giménez, and Gonzalo Milà.

The artistic vision also merges with the brand's commitment to sustainability, which works with materials derived from the recycling of plastic bottles and recycles its own products. It does so through initiatives such as a new concept of handmade, rollable toys made from scraps from the factory itself, which follows the same spirit of design from practicality that led Canals to create that first washable rug 25 years ago.