Don't Stop Me Now
Nigeria.
Crisp white damask, rich nutmeg embroidery, + highly skilled women = a knock-out new Ibu dress.
The Giving Tree
Two summers ago, while sniffing around for inspiration in an encyclopedic book of ancient textiles, (one of my favorite pastimes), I come across a man's jacket that makes me stop. And then stop some more. Straight up the back is a Tree of Life as I've never seen before, the archetype of a soul rooted in the earth, branching toward the heavens, and bearing fruit here and now. And the fruit! Though centuries old and living in a museum, the orbs are utterly modern. I close my eyes. I'm wearing a whole dress, top to bottom, with this tree of life articulating my spine, reminding me why I am here. I already love it.
When Everything Changes
It began with a child's dress - a tiny red and green affair covered in coins to deflect evil spirits; embroidery and tassels to entice the good. At Ibu, we translated this timeless inspiration into a piece for our time, and for an enthusiastic group of women in Pakistan who wanted the challenge. Many samples and iterations later, many months of work down the road, we are proud to introduce a dress that sings with history, pride, color, life. We're in love with everything about it.
Home (But Not) Alone
Less than three weeks ago, an esteemed English professor/poet laureate staying in my home pulled out his flip phone (no kidding), and pondered how to Zoom his new online classes.
Look at us now. Henry is sailing through his Zoom maneuvers; my niece Emily is streaming her Sunday morning service to an at-home congregation; my accountant is educating me via a webinar; Elton John and friends play for us from their homes; artisans the world over are checking in via What's App, friends on email and text; phone conferences play out at my home on the hour; grandparents celebrate their little ones on Facetime . . . I mean, the longer we are isolated, the more creative we get in banding together.
When the Sky Falls
When the sky falls, the tsunami hits, the pandemic spreads . . . some will run in circles. Chicken Little will squawk, horde, gnash teeth, forecast gloom.
And then there are some, in the midst of life's strange calamities, who will rise into their full stature, and with fear, but not trembling, find a way through.
And then there are some, in the midst of life's strange calamities, who will rise into their full stature, and with fear, but not trembling, find a way through.
The Ache for Home
My son is my home. My daughter is my horizon; so my father confided to his friend. I've always ached to travel and experience the world and even at the time Dad mused on this (before mobile phones or even email) I was deep into the MidEast and Africa with a backpack, dropping postcards in the mail like a trail of crumbs.
A Goddess in Your Garden
As I enter some fun parties this week, friends gently lift their elbow for a tap instead of our usual cheek kiss - a nod to the coronavirus weaving its worldwide web. I marvel at how powerful is this invisible force at work, causing us to quarantine, isolate, close schools, cancel events, crash markets, and fear contact with one another. And stop bear hugs in their tracks. Alas.
A Festival of the First Five
Even I'm a sucker for Amazon next day delivery. Retail is dead, they say. Madison Avenue is a mausoleum of the marketplace. Shopping is now a finger-click, and poof! - your next TV is waiting at your door.
Five years ago, the writing is on the wall. I open Ibu online, knowing the real market is rocketing into hyperspace. A team of five is working in my house - at the dinning table, the sewing room, the office, the kitchen - but know one else can see with their own eyes the handcrafted beauty pouring in from all over the world, which is, I think, a shame.
Moroccan Buttons of Sefrou
How do you make a button? The loop-de-loop kind of intricate things that march down a Moroccan djellaba by the dozens like a proud brigade?
Ask any of the twelve Ibu allies who traveled to the city of buttons to learn how. Sefrou, Morocco is where women know how to start with a tiny piece of paper and needle and whip up a chic little button, no problem; but teaching an American crew was another story altogether!
Faces of Ibu - Cathie Black
Cathie Black begins her book, Basic Black, talking about the importance of Drive. Persistence. Passion. A fearless forward motion in a woman that doesn't stop when set back.
I'd say she is describing herself. This woman who became the first to head up Marketing for a ground-breaking upstart called Ms. Magazine when women's issues were hardly at the forefront of public discourse - this woman threw herself into an almost impossible job and didn't give up. I'd call that Drive.
Light and Airy Embroidered Tunics from India
Maria spends her days sitting in the courtyard of her home in the rural village of Pinotepa de Don Luis, Mexico, weaving on the ancient backstrap loom. She ties the loom to a post and secures the strap around her waist, sits down on the stone ground, and begins her craft. Each hand-woven garment requires two weeks of preparation and spinning, and another 3 months or 400 hours of weaving. The pieces created are nothing less than a language of love. When asked if Maria enjoys this type of work, she proudly says this is not work to me, this is my way of life.
Accessories Woven by Mayan Descendants
Christobalina Colaj Mux worked twelve hours a day, six days a week sewing clothes and still couldn't support her seven children and husband who lost his arm and a job. She now stands before a small group of women along with her sister who has invited her to this gathering - together the women are forming a cooperative, promising steady work weaving in the traditional ways she loves, a living wage, as well as free education and skills training. She's excited; she's nervous - is it too good to be true?
A Process of Indigo Batik
I see deep, oceanic indigo. I see ancient markings born of mythology, folklore, the origins of life. Again, as always, I am swept into this current of blue, the soul of it swimming in layers of history and practice.
And then I look up and see Sarah - herself head to toe in indigo, presiding over this beauty with a knowledgeable face, and I think: That's someone I want to know.
And then I look up and see Sarah - herself head to toe in indigo, presiding over this beauty with a knowledgeable face, and I think: That's someone I want to know.
Weavings from The Zenu Tribe
In November of last year, 80 members of the Zenu community in northern Colombia gathered for the first time to participate in an afternoon of Artisan Olympic Games. Traveling from remote areas, men, women and children showcased their prowess in ancient pre-Colombian craft, competing in speed and skill. Everyone won, I'm happy to say, and received a reward of supplies from the Ibu Foundation: needles, thread, scissors, sizing tape; 36 pairs of reading glasses and 16 mobile phones were also distributed, along with a training session on how to use the phones to photograph their product for multiple retailers, as well as contact each other despite the distances that separate them.
Paperstone Baubles from Kenya
A housekeeper in Nairobi, Ruth Jepchirchir finds herself without a job when the American family for whom she works suddenly returns home. The same day, she meets Henriette Oldoff from the Netherlands, who asks if she might be interested in making products out of paper and mud? Yes begins a 9 year partnership making beauty out of waste. Soon they are inviting other women to join Ruth in her home, shredding paper, molding the earth, shaping beads, and stringing them into swish, smart jewelry.
A Vision of 2020
What a handsome number, 2020. Balanced. Strong. Sturdy. And clear, as in perfect vision.
Generous, too, throwing us a bonus day. I must admit, this leap year makes me want to leap - not just into a new year, but a new decade.
What illuminates this whole coming year is the celebration of women and our 100th year anniversary, in this country, of obtaining the right to vote. It is enough to make me pause. I mean, it is also the 25th anniversary of my life with my husband, which means that women have been voting only 4 times as long as I have been swimming in this happiness. Incredible.
Hand-Beaded Iris Clutch from Haiti
Our 98 year old Ibu Ambassador, Iris Apfel, sits next to me at our trunk show in Palm Beach and admires my clutch. An Ibu clutch, of course, embellished with a face. We ought to do a clutch with your face on it, I say casually. I think that's a great idea, she agrees, and calls me a few months later wondering what has happened with the clutch idea?
Delicate Orchid Jewelry from Colombia
Did you know an orchid can live 100 years?! (No one told mine, who grace my kitchen for a few fleeting weeks, max.) And this - orchids are 100 million year old, collectively speaking; fossils spill that secret. I had no idea.
What I did know is that deep in the three mountains ranges of Colombia, hundreds of varieties run wild and free.
To Gather Together
My father organized his voluminous slide collection (remember slides?) into categories of People, Places, Work. On Thanksgiving, we would look forward to a slide show after dinner, and never, ever did we as children, young or old, ask to see his record of Places or Work. Of course not. What matters is always . . .the people we have been and have become.
Why Not Be Turned Into Fire?
We pushed off, heading to the center of the earth. The temple in the middle of the sacred Narmada River, it is believed, aligns with the Northern Star on an axis that goes straight to the heart of our planet. Hindu pilgrims come to the site, walking for 3 years, 3 months, 3 days without taking scissors to their hair, without food or shelter, but for the grace of strangers. Ashes of loved ones are scattered here into the river's flow. . . . . And we had a bit of business of our own.
On The Road: India
It's only my second day in India and I'm crawling out of bed at 6;00 in the morning to go to the Flower Market; I could not bear to miss out on this much color. Men in white dhotis carry massive bundles of marigolds, bound for temple garlands, and rose petals to brighten fountains everywhere. There's a buzz in the quiet waking air, as though the flowers themselves are humming, about to break into song.
On The Road with Ibu
I've come to Morocco with a dozen friends, old and new, who want to meet Ibu artisans, get a personal introduction to their work, and support that work through the new non-profit arm of the Ibu Movement, WeAreIbu.org. Our days with women here have us on our knees, so generous is their hospitality, so real and palpable the connections, so wide open are their homes and hearts. Our Ibu Foundation Director carries those stories to tell, and will tell them soon.
Leather Chain Mail from Colombia
During a sabbatical year in Germany, my family would often descend to the Ratskeller below Göttingen's medieval Town Hall. I was five years old, and not really allowed in the beer cellar, but my father would rear back and say, in his most distinguished German, Ich bin ein Professor, and the host would mumble and usher us to a table despite the slant against children in such places, so elevated was the academic life of this university town.
Hand-woven Alpaca from Peru
Born in Peru, a girl named America grows up wanting to help women, especially mothers, particularly widows. It's a dream of hers, pure and simple; and more than that, her life's work. She partners with a world-traveled designer, once she comes of age, and begins to search out women - in her city of Lima and in the Peruvian highlands - whose skills can lift them out of poverty, if only they can find a way to market their work, and materials to use.
Seven Years with Jamie
Seven years ago, a shy young woman knocked on my door, interviewing for work as a seamstress. For months, we met after her regular job hours to design jackets together from my stash of artisanal fabric...
The Madina Coat
Madina pulls out some Uzbek pastries to munch on, and tea, lots of tea. I pull out a packet with pattern and stencil and a dream of a coat.
First Executive Director of Ibu Foundation
In meeting Hannah Blatt, I am struck by her quick intellect, strong voice, compassionate presence, good humor, and an unbending will toward the good.
Leather Craftsmanship from Colombia
I think of how often you tell me that you love a vest. I think of how I used to wear vestments, in another life, another line of work; and how I want to offer women garments, vestments, that allow their lives to feel powerful, centered, sane.
A Modern Refreshed Kantha Stitch
Kamla doesn't know how to read or write, but she has perfected her signature stitch, a row of tiny markings planted like seeds in a field...
Indigo Prints from El Salvador
We get Monica, in El Salvador, learning that her indigo dresses for Ibu are our best seller and that women are demanding more - would her group accomplish a new design? And to no-one's surprise, we see she aced this one, too, with circles as bright as the sun.
Silk Traditions from Bangladesh
160 years ago, in what is now Bangladesh, indigo planters put local peasants in a chokehold by leasing farmland with sky-high interest rates that led to insurmountable debt passed down from one generation to the next with no recourse; until, at last, the famous Indigo Revolt, led by peaceful peasants, began to turn the situation around.
Isa Catto- Artist and Friend
The rooftop pulsates with a music I do not know; Moroccan men in djellabas serenade under moonlight while strangers find their way toward new friends. A stunning blonde greets me, both of us a part of a week-long jamboree of American Artists for Diversity hosted in Marrakech by our mutual friend, Meryanne.
Hand-Woven Caftans from India
Devon Fisher started Pondicherie after many years of working with philanthropic organizations dedicated to women's empowerment and gender equality.
Hand Loomed Cotton Washed in the Black Sea
Here in Sile, a women's community honors a 150-year-old craft tradition,
hand-looming organic cotton, washing it in the saline water of the Black Sea, and spreading out their cloth to dry on the quartz sands of their beach.
A New Block Printing From India
Like block-printing in India - a very clear-cut affair executed with precision. But along comes Bhoomi Dani out of Design School and she gives all of that order some spontaneity.
Macrame from Colombia
I walk into the design studio of Carolina Vélez in Medellín, Colombia. . . totally unprepared for the jaw dropping that is to come.
Kantha Stitching from Bangladesh
When I see the crumpled face of our production manager, Jamie, I know we've hit a brick wall. Around her are piles of scarlet tunics hemorrhaging all over our studio. A large shipment we've awaited for two years has arrived.
Woven Bags Made by Syrian Refugees
She didn't have to, but she did. Rania Kinge went back to her homeland of Syria, despite her thriving career in Switzerland, despite her family of diplomats which allowed her access to the US, her perfect English, her endless possible lives. Rania returned to the place she came by because of the six and a half million people displaced by war in the proud country she calls home.
Gold Flora Jewelry
Her lover gave her a splendid orchid blossom. It splurged; it faded. Still cherishing, she tucked it in a drawer. A month later, forgetting, she opened and found the blossom still there - dried but alive with memory. A jeweler, she dreamt of turning it into gold. She consulted teachers, experts; no one could tell her how to perform this alchemy. So she set out - by trying and trying again - to find her own way.
Hand Painted Dress from India
When a man knocked on her door, Anita Reddy invited him in and offered him food, thinking him a beggar. Though starving, he refused, offering her instead one of his hand-painted textiles, and told of how kalamkari artisans like himself were being crushed by middle men exploiting their skills for very little pay. Organize! she thought.
Susan's Trip to Medellin, Colombia
Juan Sebastián walked into the Ibu Pop-up Shop in Palm Beach, having driven from Miami for this reason alone, to look and see for himself what Ibu is about. I work with artisans in Colombia, he said gently with an accent and with such humility and excitement that I had to lean in to get the story. You must come. And he said it with a kind of quiet conviction such that I knew my bags were already packed.
Hand Embroidered Cocktail Napkins from Rwanda
In the daily work of Ibu, I sometimes see the heavy arm of war sweep over our projects. Our production team faces questions like how to get materials to stranded artisans in Gaza, and how to get design training safely to the women in South Sudan. We've had products buried under the rubble of a suicide bomb in the Kabul airport.
Handwoven Ikat from Uzbekistan
Entering a small pink room without windows, I can hardly find a place to stand - large tables fill the whole of it and on them is an ocean of green leaves and rolling white foam. No, wait, those are silk worms surfing over the green waves, munching with such enthusiasm they are almost drunk with nutrients; some are heading to sleep to weave their dream of silk.
Beading by the Maasai Tribe in Kenya
Shauna Mistretta was no novice. She'd been working in Africa for years to expand markets for women. But in 2010, when she agreed to help a group of 200 Maasai women beaders at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro, she didn't know that her life was about to change. She didn't know that their one room thatched roof school would grow to an 8 classroom educational center with over 600 children. She didn't know that female genital mutilation, the accepted rite of passage when she began, would be completely eradicated, and the wounding that accompanies it.
Indigo Dyes in El Salvador
As one who gravitates toward a spectrum of warmth: the light of gold and fiery red and hot fuchsia, I battle with blue. Blue recedes, even as your eye tries to take it in; coy, that way, and complicated. Hard to get to know, if you ask me. And yet, we in the west say overwhelmingly that blue is our favorite color. So, I return to blue again and again to try and understand this elusive shade which doesn't so much evoke a certain feeling but rather stills them all.
Traditional Felting in Kyrgyzstan
I'm pouring through piles of remnants, samples, scraps . . . treasure hunting. I pull out a long strip of something I have never seen before - felted squares on gauzy silk and pull it around me like a robe. It's dramatic and sweeping and glamorous . . . it is instant love. This is what I didn't know I was coming for, and found.
Embroiderers in Pakistan
In the courtyard of Tasleem Bibi's home, women huddle around stretched white linen to keep alive the fine embroidery that is their Punjab heritage . . . and their only hope of livelihood. Azra, Aleeza, Sobia, Kalsom, and Usma; Naheed, Nadia, Munaza, Shumaila and Sumera; Rabia, Khatija and Rafia all shown here, are working on a dress for Ibu. They are among 2700 women in Pakistan registered with Project Rang, though many more want to work should work be found.
Iris Apfel Supports Ibu's Mission
She scoured European villages for weavers - Old World Weavers - and with her husband founded a company by that name. Iris Apfel loves textiles in a deep-down scholarly way. With a sharply discerning eye, she knows the pure quality of old world techniques and designs - and gave her life to preserving them, such that nine presidents of the United States came to Iris to reproduce significant historic textiles for the White House.
Introducing the Ibu Foundation
I'm sitting down with Chantha Nguon to discuss designs for our World Dress collection, having admired for years her work with luscious silk. Chantha is a strong, petite woman with a handsome face and eyes that hold a harrowing history. Born in culturally rich Cambodia, Chantha escaped the Khmer Rouge regime when she was nine, living in war-torn Saigon and later for 10 years without family in a Thai refugee camp. When she at last returned to her home in Cambodia, the culture had been extinguished; the women in her village knew nothing of their heritage, nor of hope.
A Look Ahead to our March 8th Fashion Show
Standing behind the curtains during an Audubon Runway Show last week, I am the silent eye in the midst of a storm. Fifteen young women stampede into the dressing room, hot off the runway, frantically throwing off their clothes to allow a well-orchestrated Ibu team to dress them again in trousers and jacket, wrap scarves and style turbans, chunk on cuffs, slip on shoes, clip on earrings; pile on necklaces, change the lip color and throw the hair into a wild top knot - all in 60 seconds or less - and then head my way for a final check.