A heritage,
woven and shared.
Dyad Artisans was founded in 2017 by Pouria Zoughi and Missy Saleeba to bring exceptional handwoven Persian carpets and crafts to Melbourne, as a way to share Pouria’s heritage while creating a cultural dialogue and keeping ancient Persian craft traditions alive.
Two friends and a trip to Iran.
Dyad began in 2017, after Pouria Zoughi and Missy Saleeba travelled through Iran together. The idea came out of that trip, over a drink: bring the country’s crafts to Melbourne, and give the people who make them a market.
Pouria’s part, in his words, was “the knowledge of the country, the knowledge of the craft, and where to source,” along with how to work with the people who make it.
“A lot of the craftspeople are very marginalised at the moment because of mass consumerism, so their craft and their art might actually die. What we’re trying to do is find a market for them.”
Some of these traditions are very old. In Kalporgan, in south-east Iran, pottery is still shaped entirely by hand, without a wheel, from the same clay the potters have always used. A new piece can look like something just excavated.
In the film, a weaver who works without sight tells red willow from green by taste, and does the rest by touch.
That is still why Dyad exists: to give this work a market in Melbourne, and to sell it with everything we can tell you about where it comes from.
From a market stall to Swan Street.
In 2018 Dyad opened a stall at South Melbourne Market. Missy stepped away from the business at the end of that year, and Pouria has run Dyad since.
The collection outgrew the stall, and in July 2025 Dyad moved into the gallery on Swan Street, Richmond: a corner building with room to hang rugs on the walls and lay them out on the floor, so they can be seen properly.
One country’s weaving, known well.
One weaving tradition.
Almost every piece in the collection was woven in Iran, across nearly a hundred towns, villages and tribes, from the Qashqai and Afshar to Bijar and Mazandaran. Keeping to one country’s weaving is what lets us read a rug properly: where it was made, by what kind of weaver, and roughly when.
Chosen in Iran, by Pouria.
Pouria buys the collection himself, in Iran, from weavers, workshops and dealers. Every piece is washed and serviced there before it is shipped to Melbourne.
Woven to order.
New pieces are commissioned from weavers we work with in Mazandaran, among the Qashqai and Shooli of Fars, and in Bijar. A flatweave takes a few months; a pile rug takes about a year.
Described as it is.
Each listing gives where a piece was woven, its materials and size, and its age as a range, such as third quarter of the 20th century, because that is usually as precise as a rug allows. When a piece is signed or dated, the listing says so.
Come and see them in person.
Most of the collection is on the floor at Richmond, and it is the only way to judge a rug properly.