Who makes our designs?
This is a question we often get when visitors tour our production facilities and see the incredible patterns that our weavers are creating. The simple answer is – US! Over the last 20 years, 90% of our designs have been created by the team at Sabahar, usually through an intentional process that involves our artisans, our customers and our management team. Here are some of our sources of inspiration.
Learning from success
One common journey of new design creation is taking a popular design and modifying it to become a new design. An example is our Genale design. Years ago we had a design called ‘dots’ (pictured on the left) because it was basically a pattern where weft threads laid on top of the 3- 4 warp threads at once to look like a dot or dash. Our weavers were good at this design and our customers loved it. Our goal was to keep some dots but evolve the design. Voila, by adding some lines, the Genale design was created (on the right). Our Genale towels are now some of our most popular.
Being inspired by Ethiopian heritage
If any of you have visited Northern Ethiopia, you will have experienced the awe of seeing the rock churches of Lalibela. The geometric monoliths of stone with their vertical and horizontal lines speak to timeless stability and durability.
This inspiration led us to create our Gondar collection of table linens. The geometric pattern is possible to create on traditional Ethiopian looms by using the rep weaving technique which was new for our weavers. We now offer this design in 2 color ways.
Celebrating the creativity of our artisans
We work with incredible weavers. Their passion for understanding weaving techniques and trying new designs is a Sabahar strength. One example is the Sitota design.
This classic pinwheel weaving structure was first woven at Sabahar by Melkamu, a gifted artisan who has been weaving since he was a teenager. After perfecting this design, Melkamu didn’t stop. By using the same warp but changing the weft pattern, a new product was created. We are so excited to share the Aaron scarf - our latest design which is particularly elegant on men.
We believe that everyone has the ability to be creative. Often the only obstacle is the lack of opportunity for this creativity to be expressed, to cultivate and be shared. The Sabahar vision includes being a space where creativity can thrive and we hope that this is demonstrated in our products.
As always, we sincerely welcome your feedback. How do you think we are doing on design?