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.
Meet the Faces of Ibu
Each week, I celebrate here women of uncommon strength; artisans crafting a new world; Ibu on the move. But there is another kind of Ibu in this movement: women of influence and accomplishment among us who are reaching out to elevate women worldwide.
The New Ibu Foundation
Five years ago, I began to walk into a vision of Ibu. What I wanted was a movement, women around the world clasping one another by the arm, disrupting poverty and shaking down prejudice that censored their incadescent imaginations and together rising into a new self-respect. All this by putting money in the hands of women for the fine skills they carry in their bones - and for which they have rarely been paid.
Spring 2019 Collection
Every four years, the best weavers from16 city-states came together with the skills and fibers of their region to weave a new dress for Athena. From the Acropolis, she watched over the weaving and the wars of ancient Greece; this peplos was a stunning thing carried through the streets in a high festival, promoting peace among diverse peoples. Peace through a fine new dress, I'm saying, and by way of the women who wove it.
Hand Beaded Earrings from South Africa
Over cocktails in a friend's garden, I am trying to talk with brilliant Jennifer Griffin, national security correspondent for Fox News in DC, but as our conversation roams over global and women's issues of great significance, I hate to admit I'm seriously distracted by her earrings. Not because they're distracting, but because they are so fresh, so chic, so original - metallic beaded things that looked like they might take off in flight. When we finally take a breath, I jump on the chance.
World Famous Mountaineer Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita
Growing up in the shadow of Mount Everest, Pasang wanted to be a mountaineer from an early age, though she had never really heard of another woman doing so. She loved the mountains, that was all. Her parents died by the time she was 15, leaving a 6 year old sister for her to raise. She decided, somehow, in those circumstances, nothing is impossible.
Hand-Made Jewelry by Brooke Jaron
An old silver talisman, rubbed smooth by hands and time . . . that's all I see. It's as though nothing else exists for a brief moment except this rare treasure around a woman's neck, whispering to me. The woman and I have never met; she is gently perusing Ibu inventory in New York at a trunk show last year. The necklace finally introduced us.
Nepal's Noble Fibre
Thin air, tattered prayer flags, lonesome wind. Snow leopards, tea houses with yak butter. Temples at 17,000 feet. When I think of the Annapurna mountains of Nepal, I think first of trekkers hoisting backpacks, swinging bridges, random avalanches, cold spectacular. I think maybe I'd like to be one of those trekkers one day.
Beaded Earphones and Chargers from Kenya
The first face of Ibu, Abigail graced our lookbooks, modeled our first Ibu looks . . . and, more than modeling . . . she lived and breathed the early life of the Ibu tribe.
Velvet Ikat from Turkey
Cutting between Istanbul's Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofia on the way to work is a bit surreal. The April day is shining and clear and the tourists who would normally throng this area are alarmingly absent - a suicide bombing in the Istanbul airport in 2016 has driven Europeans and Americans away in droves
Handspun Hope from Rwanda
Odette is hired as one of the first ten women to work at the Rwandan enterprise, Handspun Hope, and on that very evening of this new beginning, gives birth to her daughter, Diana. Diana has grown up as the enterprise has grown, now with 122 women finding creative, sustaining work, new skills, safe harbor, and each other. In that is also the beginning of healing from the deep wounds of genocide.
Renowned Embroiderer in Uzbekistan
Far across the parking lot, I see a crimson coat dancing with threads of Samarkand - one of my favorite embroidered designs evoking prosperity and peace - now lit up by the low slant of sun. Pulse goes up; my feet swerve and head straight toward this sighting without thought.
Kisses from Kismet
Wavy tiger stripes and leopard dots speaking to courage and strength? Or glowing pearls and jewels from Tibetan Buddhism? Drifting clouds, you could say, or are they rivers, these undulating waves?
Intricate Embroidery from Afghanistan
Watching the 2001 Iranian film, Kandahar this week, I see the true story of Afghan-Canadian journalist, Nafas, desperately trying to find her way back to her birth city to save the sister left behind from her depression and threatened suicide.
Velvet from Uzbekistan
Among the thousands of silk worms rustling before me on a bed of mulberry leaves, one occasionally raises a sleepy head to strike a pose, signaling the cocoon won't be long in coming. Aziz begins the day by explaining the life of a silk worm here in a family compound in Margilan, Uzbekistan.
Millennial Mantra Cuffs from Colombia
Several months ago, I stumbled across an online article translating insanely popular millennial idioms into the kind of English that I typically, boringly speak. From Refinery 29 I learned that lit had moved on since my college days from the good time I had the night before to something bigger - the whole stinking party is on fire!
Woven Earrings and Totes from Mola Sasa
On the slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, four indigenous groups have lived in simplicity according to their nature-rich spiritual traditions, untouched by the rest of the world.