The WARP Blog

I left Afghanistan on August 17, 2021, a date that will forever remain unforgettable. With twenty minutes warning, I left behind my beloved country, along with my life, my hope, my dreams, my world, my happiness, and my laughter. Today, as I stand here in Canada, a short way into a new journey, I hold on to the one thing that still keeps me going: my passion to support other Afghan women, to bring light to those who have lost their hope and are now living in darkness. ENGLISH/FRANÇAIS/ESPAÑOL

The sky in autumn is grayish white, it has been like this for several days, the drizzle falls timidly throughout the day and there is so much fog around us that it is impossible to see the sun. Moisture keeps the soil black and wet, the plants are happy. I find myself surrounded by mountains, in an indigenous community called Hueyapan, a Nahuatl word that translates as “over the big river” because fresh water is abundant here. INGLÉS/ESPAÑOL

Couleur Garance was born more than 20 years ago thanks to the unwavering will of a plant color enthusiast, Michel Garcia. It was created as an association initially, which included a botanical collection and different activities to promote natural dye knowledge. It was later on, in 2021, that Couleur Garance became a SCOP. A SCOP is a new business model set up in France where all employees have decision-making power. There is no hierarchy. ENGLISH/FRANÇAIS/ESPAÑOL

By Deborah Chandler “I like work, I like hard work. I work hard to educate my children. I want to become a good wife, mother, and good daughter-in-law, because I am illiterate.” Girja was born in 1975 sometime in December. … Read More

Thank you to all who supported WARP by purchasing tickets for the 2024 Raffle! With your support, we raised over $6000 for WARP to continue our work supporting textile artisans worldwide.

In the year 1998 I graduated from Textile Design and then moved to Barcelona in Spain to study a postgraduate degree in Knitwear Fashion Design. In 2005 I moved to Oaxaca where I had the wonderful opportunity to found and direct the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, a non-profit organization financed by the Alfredo Harp Helú Foundation. There, in coexistence and close collaboration with artisans and designers, I realized for the first time the potential of design as a tool for social innovation and transformation. INGLÉS/ESPAÑOL

On the opening day of Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style, I was on a panel about cultural appropriation and appreciation.Kaiser spoke to the implications of cultural appropriation for consumers. The chance of coming together all of these years later to discuss the same topic in a new context was fortuitous. What I wanted viewers of my documentary in 1999 and visitors to the de Young in 2024 to consider when thinking about this topic hasn’t changed — it’s still all about power.  INGLÉS/ESPAÑOL

Here’s a story that comes from the 200-member Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers’ Co-Operative, in operation in the Alaskan Arctic since 1969, making it one of the oldest – and coldest – groups we know of. INGLÉS/ESPAÑOL