We work closely with Womenweave. We act as an agent for the collection and can work with clients to develop new colours and fabrics with them. The current collection can be viewed at our London studio.
In 2017 a friend introduced Laura Miles to the work of the WomenWeave Collective in Maheshwar, India with a view to her helping them to expand their collection of designs and broaden their market throughout the fashion world.
The WomenWeave Charitable Trust has supported the role of women in handloom weaving since its inception in 2002, working towards making handloom a profitable, fulfilling, sustainable and dignified income-earning activity, particularly for women in rural areas of India. It also keeps alive the traditional craft of handweaving.
WomenWeave favours women who are divorced, widowed, separated or disabled, as well as agricultural labourers with no family income. Thus the initiative empowers the weakest and poorest sections of Indian society. The women are taught hand spinning and weaving, helping them to control all the levels of production.
The goal of WomenWeave is to sustain earth-friendly, tightly vertical production that makes sense for Central India’s cotton-growing area. The WomenWeave project can be seen as a leader of the global Slow Fashion movement.
At the mill, a simple day care centre for the children of spinners and weavers working on thE project has been set up. The early education of more than 130 young children is sponsored by WomenWeave. The centre is an effort to ensure that in their role as weavers, the women can also be mothers. Knowing that their children are safe, close by, and well taken care of enables them to work better and happier.
Senior weaver Sunita Arande reflects that:
“We weave to pay for our children’s educations or to feed our families. It’s work we love because we’re all together facing the same challenges and sharing the same successes...
We don’t know all the places our weaves go in this world, but we know that people everywhere like them very much.”
You can shop the collection of dresses and sleepwear using the WomenWeave fabrics online at Maia London. If you wish to browse the collection in person, it is available through appointment at Woven Studio’s showroom in London.
