Carpet Company is the brainchild of brothers Ayman and Osama Abdeldayem first-generation Egyptian Americans who turned their love of skateboarding, design, and DIY culture into one of the most inventive brands around today. Raised in the DMV after an early childhood in Alabama, their introduction to skateboarding began with hand-me-down VHS tapes and Toy Machine’s Welcome to Hell, sparking a curiosity about graphics, gear, and style. Skateboarding became their entry point into a broader world of subcultures.
Founded in 2015, Carpet began with zero creative background and zero funding—just two brothers teaching themselves how to screen print out of a basement. The early pieces came from necessity: if they couldn’t afford it, they’d figure out how to make it. That ethos still drives the brand today. Each drop is approached with obsessive attention to material, process, and experimentation from UV-reactive inks and heat-sensitive sweaters to full-register board prints and custom aluminum Nike SB boxes. There’s intention behind every stitch and screen. Today, Carpet has grown from that basement setup to a self-renovated Baltimore warehouse, and now into The Bank—an upcoming storefront that will function as a shop, gallery, and creative hub. On the following pages, Carpet’s founders Ayman and Osama sit down with longtime friend and collaborator Freaky Franz of Turnstile to talk through their journey.
Issue 11 features Ayman and Osama Abdeldayem in conversation with Freaky Franz. Full interview in print.
Franz: Just tell me about being first-generation Egyptian—coming from foreign parents and landing here. What was the beginning like, finding your stride? I imagine choosing a creative path for your life must’ve been tough to explain to Egyptian-African parents. What was the start? Where do we begin? What’s the foundation of Carpet Company—math?
Osama: Math. There was no such thing as creativity. It had to be a question and an answer. That’s it.
Ayman: I agree—definitely math. No creative thinking. Growing up, our parents were all about school. Just school, school, school.
Franz: So your parents are from Egypt. Where do we start? Where are you guys from? I know you’re not originally from Maryland.
Osama: We were born in Alabama but definitely raised with an Egyptian mindset. Moved to Maryland after that. Lived in PG County, then DC, then Baltimore. So we’ve seen a wide range of places. But when you average it all out, it helped us make something really cool.
Ayman: Yeah, Alabama, DC, PG, B-more—facts.
Franz: I love that. It was a different journey to get to Maryland and the DMV. So you’re here after Alabama—how many siblings?
Ayman: I’m the youngest of five. Osama’s right above me.
Osama: Yeah, five of us total. Definitely a full house.
Franz: That’s a full house for sure.
Osama: It wasn’t like, “Mom, what’s for dinner?” It was just—there’s dinner. Grab what you can. If you got bones, you got bones.
Ayman: That’s why I eat the way I do now.
Franz: But that kind of symbolizes how you guys operate professionally too. You’re always hungry. Always pushing. Using new materials, not settling for the same ideas. I’ve seen you go super minimal, and I’ve also seen you step way out of the box to try something new.
Osama: So we made it to Maryland, from Egypt to Alabama to here.
Ayman: Yeah. Parents came from Egypt trying to make a living. They ended up in Louisiana, then Alabama, had us, then moved from New York to Louisiana to Alabama, and finally to Maryland. That’s where we were raised. Half a circle.
Franz: That’s a lovely half circle.
Ayman: From Maryland is really where our life began—where we started discovering what was cool. I lived in Alabama for 10 years, and the day before we moved to Maryland, my friend’s mom took us to a skate park. That was the first time I ever saw skateboarding. The next day, I asked my mom to take me to Kmart to get a skateboard. That’s where it started.
Osama: Did we watch the Toy Machine video in Alabama?
Ayman: Yeah, Alabama. True. That was in Alabama. Man, that’s crazy.
Franz: The Whitesburg house unlocked something new real quick.
Ayman: Our older brother brought home a Toy Machine video—Welcome to Hell. We watched it over and over.
Osama: We thought it was a porno.
Ayman: We didn’t even understand what was going on, but we kept watching it. Then, right before moving to Maryland, we hit the skate park. That combo just hit.
Franz: I’m glad you shared that. Skateboarding is such a backbone of Carpet. You might have veered off into other creative things, but it’s always been rooted in skating.
Osama: It’s wild—people usually start skating in weird ways. Most folks have older friends or brothers, or maybe they find a board at a thrift store. We found the video first.
Ayman: Watched it like four times. Then someone handed us a board and we went to the skate park. It all just clicked.
Osama: I still have that VHS tape.
Franz: You’ve gotta keep that kind of stuff around. So you’re in Maryland now. A bunch of siblings. What are your parents doing at that point? Baba’s working in science, right?
Ayman: Yeah. He worked with lasers in Alabama.
Franz: That sounded like twain coming out of your mouth.
Ayman: [Laughs] Yeah, he worked in lasers. But then we moved because of some racial issues at his job. His boss was super racist. Nothing crazy, but it was time to go.
Franz: What year was that?
Ayman: Around 1993.
Franz: Yeah, makes sense. Alabama in the ’80s… I’ve been to Birmingham a few times—can imagine the vibes. So he moved up north to keep working in science?
Ayman: Yeah. Eventually, he ended up overseeing patents and doing more office-type work, but still in the laser field.
Franz: So he’s always been in science. That makes sense. So you’re here now—skateboarding’s in the mix, you’re figuring out what you like. What starts the first season of Carpet?
Ayman: After we moved to Maryland, we just skated all day. Me, Osama, and our brother Ehab. Just in front of the house. Didn’t know any other skaters. Felt like we were on an island. We all had skateboards, and we had that Toy Machine video.
Franz: Osama, what were you like back then?
Osama: Confused.
Ayman: For real.
Osama: We moved to PG County around 2002 or 2003. We were learning ollies, kickflips—basic stuff. No swag. We were fat. Our parents literally bought us skateboards to lose weight.
Franz: So we’re on board number two or three now?
Ayman: Yeah. But they weren’t real boards yet.
Osama: Nope. One was from eBay—grip tape missing. One was made of metal. I remember the brand: Dimensions.
Ayman: Yeah, that was the fake one, not the metal one.
Osama: No real skate apparel. Just fake boards. We thought aluminum was good because it wouldn’t break. Very scientific.
Franz: You’re thinking like engineers.
Osama: Breakthrough moment was when we convinced our dad to take us to Sun & Ski Sports. That’s when I got my first 7.18 Fred Gall Habitat.
Ayman: I got a Flip board for my birthday. That was a year after the eBay board.
Osama: Bought a Spitfire hoodie. And that’s how it started—with gear, with graphics. We were like 11 and 13, just recognizing stuff we liked.
Franz: Twelve years old and already light years ahead. I’m still not that fly, bro—you pulled up to school at 12 wearing Avengers?
Ayman: Yeah, 12 going on 13. It’s crazy though, we talk about it now—back then, we didn’t even know who we were looking up to.
Osama: Yeah, like, we didn’t know who was behind BAPE or Ice Cream. We were too young to care about the people running it. I found out who owned that stuff later. I don’t even know why we started buying those pieces.
Franz: Right, you didn’t even have the full picture.
Osama: Exactly. But Ayman was 12, I was 14, 14 and a half—and by then we had a ridiculous collection.
Ayman: Thirteen and fifteen. Raw denim, crazy kicks.
Osama: I remember having 75 pairs of Nikes by the time I was 15 or 16.
Franz: From one pair of fake Jordans to that? Y’all were saving every penny, flipping everything.
Ayman: It started with flipping shoes. Our mom maybe bought one or two pairs from the jump. We were always trying to be on some hustle.
Franz: Of course. Looking for steals, not deals.
Ayman: Exactly. I got a MySpace photo—13, bald with a buzz cut, wearing BAPE jeans, BAPE tee, Bapestas. Another pic, stacked with Ed Hardy and three BlackBerry’s.
Osama: Oh man…
Franz: Y’all were in full mode early. Thirteen, fourteen—you cared about style, you were skating every day, you were good at it too.
Ayman: Yeah, we were really skating. And we always pushed each other.
Franz: But it’s not outwardly competitive—it’s more like Shaolin brotherhood. I’ve seen y’all push each other in skating in ways you don’t do with anyone else.
Osama: We don’t usually play against each other—it brings out something different. It’s like skating’s our chess.
Franz: Exactly. You’ll fight to play another round. It’s rare.
Osama: I won one game of chess. He’s been avoiding a rematch.
Ayman: We’re 2–2. I’m just not playing again. Too stressful.
Franz: [Laughs] I don’t have another 45 minutes in me for that.
Ayman: Exactly.
Franz: But that kind of back-and-forth—it makes you both stronger. You’re sharpening each other, learning each other’s moves. You’re right next to each other but on your own journeys. So where are we at now? We’re about to make the first Season 1 Carpet tee?
Osama: Yeah, how does it go from just skating and getting fly to actually making your own stuff?
Franz: Exactly. You found your style, came all the way from Alabama, whole family under one roof, you’ve figured out your vibe… but where do you go from being consumers to designers?
Ayman: We skipped a chunk—the early 2010s.
Osama: Yeah, I was gonna say that.
Ayman: So we were really into clothes up until 2010. Buying a ton. Super deep into it. But from 2010 to 2014, it was all skate. Spitfire tees, full skate fit. I had heat in the closet—Jordan 5s, crazy stuff I was selling for $40 on Facebook and not even caring. 2010 to 2014 was all about filming. We dropped two skate parts between 2012 and 2014. Skating every day. Traveling—Miami, wherever. Around that time, our friend had a brand too.
Osama: Don’t say the name.
Ayman: [Laughs] Nah, but that was like our test run. People thought it was ours because we were the face of it. That gave us the confidence—like, yo, we can do our own thing.
Franz: Yeah.
Ayman: That takes us to 2015. That’s when we started thinking: “Let’s do something for real.” We threw out names and landed on Carpet Company—somehow. No idea how. Then came the question of how to make it. We had no background in screen printing. No budget to pay for printing either. So we were like, let’s figure it out ourselves.
Osama: And for the record—Franz is walking around in slippers shaped like rats.
Franz: I had to! [Laughs]
Ayman: [Laughs] Alright, good. So back to 2015.
Osama: Yeah. That was a pivotal year. After skating hard for years, we wanted to create something. We had the name Carpet Company and wanted to do it all ourselves. No more Karmaloop. No more mass stuff. Just something that felt personal. So we bought a screen printing machine.
Franz: To print your own shirts?
Osama: Yeah, because we were broke and didn’t want to pay for production.
Ayman: We thought it would be like an Epson printer. Just load a shirt in and press a button. Super wrong.
Ayman: Also, we were sponsored by Palace5ive Skate Shop in DC at the time. We weren’t trying to start a brand. We just wanted to make some shirts our friends would wear.
Osama: Exactly. I was working at Pepco, a utility company. He had just gotten a job too. We were using whatever little money we had to buy blanks and experiment.
Franz: So you have the name, the screen print setup, you’re making stuff in the house?
Ayman: Shout out to Evan. Osama was living with him in Hyattsville. We started Carpet in Evan’s grandma’s basement. This would’ve never happened in our parents’ house—they wouldn’t have allowed it. But Evan had the space and was down.
Osama: $200 a month—two bedrooms and a basement.
Ayman: Good ol’ days. That basement is where we practiced screen printing for all of 2015. We messed everything up. But we learned. Once we figured out tees, we thought skateboards would be just as easy. Turns out—nope. Whole different beast.
Osama: We weren’t gonna give up though. We figured it out. Eventually, we made three tees, two boards, and maybe one hat.
Ayman: No idea what that hat was. Probably just a “C” on it.
Franz: So by early 2016, you’re like: Let’s put this out.
Ayman: Yeah, after a year and a half of trial and error, we had three tees and two decks. Maybe made ten of each.
Osama: No plans to make money. We were just trying to see if we could sell them—or give them to friends.
Ayman: We were terrible salesmen. I remember talking about the brand at Palace5ive, and the owner overheard. He was like, “Y’all are doing tees?” And I said yeah. He asked for an order. I had to go home and Google what an order form looked like.
Franz: [Laughs] Amazing.
Ayman: We sent it over. He ordered maybe 80 tees and four decks. We gave him like 16—’cause that’s all we had. He called back a week later asking for more. We hadn’t sold anything else, so we just gave him those too.
Osama: He basically bought up all of season one.
Ayman: And we’d given the rest away to our friends. Then he posted us on Instagram. That led to another shop hitting us up from Virginia, then Tennessee, then New York. Season 2 was happening.
Franz: What year is that?
Ayman: End of 2016. Season 2 time.
Franz: Was I in the mix back then?
Ayman: You probably came in 2017. That’s when our first Turnstile drops happened. Yeah, I feel like 2016 to 2017 was a different vibe. In 2016, we sold to like four stores.
Franz: There we go.
Ayman: Season 3 dropped in late 2016—December, I think. Season 2 is kind of a gray area. Not even sure it existed. But Season 3 was the end of 2016. Then Season 4 came, and I feel like that’s when we really got in touch with you. We already knew Brendan from Turnstile—just from skating together, whatever. When did we go to our first show? 2017?
Osama: Yeah, 2017. We knew Brendan through skating. We didn’t even know anything about his music at first. He was just introduced to us like, “Hey, this is my friend Brendan—we started a band together.”
Ayman: Yeah, with Sean Cullen.
Osama: And we were like, “Cool.” Brendan was bald—very bald. We didn’t know what that meant at the time. We just wanted to skate. But yeah, we skated a few times, pre-Carpet, and became pretty good friends. That first Turnstile show we went to was in New York, right?
Ayman: No, the first one was in early 2017 or late 2016. It was cold out. Someone got a Doc Marten to the face, like first or second song. I remember after the show, I was talking to Osama and we were like, “Yo, we gotta do something with them. That was so cool.” At that time, we were super small. I remember they had like 25K followers—but maybe even less.
Osama: We had like 3,000. They probably had 8–12K.
Ayman: Yeah, that sounds about right. They were small, but way bigger than us. I remember thinking, “We’ve got to do something with them.” They were just the bros. It was cool to see that energy.
Osama: I called Brendan while driving home. He was like, “Let’s do it.” So we started getting ideas mid-season. This was Season 4, summer 2017. We put together our first Turnstile collab—that was our first time feeling like we really did something with somebody.
Franz: That was super cool. And this was all done in Mama and Baba’s basement, right?
Ayman: Yeah—Laurel, MD. Y’all pulled up. You were printing boards.
Franz: We did the Extremely Rare Ralph Lauren joint.
*Full interview available only in-print.
This story for the release of Issue 11 of Living Proof Magazine. Now available on our Patreon and Online Shop.
