Thanks to | Dutch Design in Development
The design Air Planting was a hit right after its introduction at Dutch Design Week in 2014. Design stores in the Netherland, Germany and Denmark wanted to purchase them for their shops. In January 2015 I had to find someone who could do the greatest part of the mesh making for us. We found a guy who could alter a machine for knitting socks to make the mesh, but I found the pattern of the hand knitted version to be much nicer.
'Dutch Design in Development' helps designers find fair trade production partners. Stella van Himbergen runs this company and together we went to one of her Fair Trade production contacts Bosnia and Herzegovina. A lot of women were widowed during the civil war (1992 – 1995) or did not have the opportunity to go to school. Working for this craft company they earn a fair income and have the opportunity to work from home.
These are some of the ladies working in production
Although the women we met did not speak English, handcraft is a language in its own right and they understood perfectly what we wanted just by showing them some examples. Traveling with Stella was a wonderful experience and the country and the people where beautiful. Also we were introduced me some other really skilled handicraft companies. It was enough to fall in love with handcraft all over again.
