One Fine Thread

2012-02-13T01:00:00.001Z

“Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future” Albert Camus

2012-01-20T13:51:00.001Z

The Inspiring Colours of Global Crafts

2012-01-19T11:08:00.008Z

Iris Apfel - The Jewellery Queen

2012-01-18T11:38:00.010Z

Merchants on Long selling One Fine Thread on L'attitude

2011-12-20T18:07:00.002Z

See Merchants on Long from Cape Town selling One Fine Thread on L'Atitude

Louis Vuitton lastest Campaign shot in Rajasthan, India.

2011-12-09T13:10:00.009Z

2011-12-09T13:05:00.000Z

Chanel Métiers D’Art Pre-Fall 2012 Paris Meets Bombay Jewellery

2011-12-09T12:19:00.012Z

The Chanel Métiers D’Art Pre-Fall 2012 Paris-Bombay jewellery was so beautiful and intricate that they could have had a show unto themselves. But for all of their embellishment, Karl Lagerfeld managed to make it look all in good taste.

All of the models wore tikka – jewelry hanging on to the forehead that you attach to your hair – the Chanel version differed on some models by the addition of many chains that hung and draped over the side of the face. Bracelets took on a life of their own with some covering the hand and some with finger attachments. Necklaces ran the gamut from chokers to full bib necklaces to running across the body, across the shoulder and even full body jewelry that looked like a mesh overlay worn over clothing. Fingerless gloves and boots have patterns on them that were reminiscent of mehendi henna patterns normally seen on the hands and feet of brides.

One Fine Thread Coverage Featured in WhoWhatWear

2011-12-09T10:44:00.003Z

One Fine Thread coverage featured in WhoWhatWear

One Fine Thread available at L-atitude

2011-12-09T10:38:00.003Z

Please see One Fine Thread's Jewels of the Kalahari collection at L-atitude L-atitude,is an online portal, where fashion meets travel, for shopping trips around the world. L-atitude introduces exotic, exclusive and edgy finds from the world’s most stylish cities to you.

Laurens van der Post, author of The Lost World of the Kalahari

2011-10-26T18:56:00.011+01:00

"To me it was simply that the older I got, the more and more I felt that we had lost, there was a bushman in everybody, and we'd lost contact with that side of ourselves. And we must learn again from the bushman. Trying to find out what is that side about.

I thought how strange it was that people were digging up old ruins -- archeologists excavating to find out what archaic man was like, and here he was walking about in our midst. Why didn't we ask him? That really is at the back of it: the fact that the bushman personified an aspect of natural man which we all have, but with which we've increasingly lost contact and that has impoverished us and endangered us.

And when I spoke to Jung about it he said this is not an extravagant thought at all. He said every human being has a 2 million year-old man within himself. And if he loses contact with that 2 million year-old self he loses his real roots. So this question of why modern man is in search of his soul and has lost his religious roots had a lot to do with my interest in the bushman.

Because I found that the difference between this naked little man in the desert, who owned nothing, and us was that he is and we have, but no longer are. We have. We've exchanged having for being.

So if the bushman goes, through what one knew of him, his stories, and his art, he would still be important to us. He must live on through these things. And that's what I've tried, merely tried, to bring back -- to use him as a bridge between the world in the beginning, with which we've lost touch, and the now."

- Laurens van der Post at 87, 1994, interviewed in his home in Chelsea

That Tribal Feeling......

2011-10-25T08:19:00.001+01:00

Realisations

2011-10-24T18:42:00.004+01:00

Accessories Style from Milan, Paris, New York to London

2011-10-03T18:01:00.014+01:00

Gurmit - My Favourite Model, Designer, Artist and Jewellery Muse

2011-09-27T19:52:00.004+01:00

International Council of Thirteen Grandmothers

2011-09-14T23:53:00.005+01:00

An interview with Grandma Aggie here

The International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers are a group of Spiritual Elders who came together in 2004 to form an international alliance of indigenous female elders. The Grandmothers are concerned for the state of the world and all living in it and believe that the need for change is urgent; and consider that their formation is fulfilling an ancient prophecy by many indigenous people of the world in which,

“when the Grandmothers from the four directions speak, a new time is coming.”

By 6 February 2010, the Grandmothers had a pool of 889 years of wisdom and experience to rely on.

Jewels of the Kalahari available at Couture Lab

2011-09-01T10:34:00.003+01:00

To buy One Fine Thread's Jewels of the Kalahari go to Couture Lab to see the collection.

The extraordinary life and work of Mirella Ricciardi

2011-07-14T23:07:00.007+01:00

The French, Italian artist born in Kenya, Mirella Ricciardi has travelled for over forty years around Africa to record her home, country and its people. The result of her journey is reflected in the unique photographs which form the basis of the bestselling book Vanishing Africa (1971). Vanishing Africa granted a new audience an unprecedented insight into the world of the East African people. It also became a model for Leni Riefenstahl and Peter Beard. When Mirella Ricciardi began photography in 1967, she did not have any technical training. She was inspired by the surroundings of Lake Naivasha, where she grew up and a place with a number of native Africans and a wide variety of animals. These two years of her work include portraits of six Kenyan tribes and their traditional lifestyle: Samburu, the Maasai, the Rendille, Turkana, the Bajun and the Gala Boran. Particular focus is on their traditional way of life and death, and their incomparable simple beauty.
http://www.mirellaricciardi.com/

Check out Couture Lab Magazine

2011-06-23T12:08:00.003+01:00

Read more about One Fine Thread in Couture Lab magazine this week.

One Fine Thread's Jewels of the Kalahari Collection is now at Couture Lab

2011-06-13T17:58:00.007+01:00

Check out the Jewels of the Kalahari collection at Couturelab.com or at the boutique at 37 Davis Street, London, W1K 4LS.

Styling It - Malick Sidibé Captures 1960's Mali

2011-04-13T10:42:00.011+01:00

Malick Sidibé was born in 1935 in Mali and studied design and jewelry at the Institut National des Arts, Mali. Malik Sidebe had a penchant for capturing youth culture in Mali in the 1960s. This was at a time when Mali had begun to embrace Rock ’n’ Roll. Mini skirts, flared jeans and long hair were all the rage; free love was propagated.

In the 1960's the former French colony had just been granted independence. Political liberation inspired a self-confident younger generation to embark on the search for identity and a new joie de vivre. However, in many strata of the population the thirst for freedom and national self-determination was not expressed by a reawakening of the original African culture that had been suppressed for so long, but culminated in the imitation of the culture of the European colonisers. There is no separating Malick Sidibé’s photographs from the social and historical context of his home town of Bamako; they offer an insight into the search of young Malians for their own identity and document how they vacillate between African tradition and the modern Western world.

As in most other societies, in Mali your hair style, clothes, jewellery and particular objects count as status symbols. In Malick Sidibé’s photographs, the women are proud of their hair and dresses, and the men are not afraid to don a suit and tie, or a flower-power shirt and flared jeans, posing on motorcycles or with a portable stereo system. Many of these status symbols were props from Sidibé’s studio and did not actually belong to those portrayed in the pictures. They emphasise the wish for prestige and a desire to know the Western world.

Back in the 1960s, incidentally, Malick Sidibé saw himself neither as a chronicler of the change in cultural values nor as an artist. He was a freelance photographer who had to live on the proceeds of what he made in his studio. Like his older colleague, Seydou Keita, he declared, “I photographed my clients the way they wanted to see themselves in the photograph.”

That Pale Blue Dot

2011-01-10T10:22:00.003Z

This is an excerpt from a talk given by the late Dr. Carl Sagan (1934 - 96), American astronomer and Pulitzer prize-winning author, who was talking about the the images of our planet captured from more than four billion miles away by Voyager 1 in 1990 as it travelled away from the Earth.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

Irving Penn - Worlds in a Small Room

2011-01-08T02:04:00.010Z

Penn, constantly explored the photographic medium and its boundaries, typically he preferred to isolate his subjects — from fashion models to Aborigine tribesmen — from their natural settings to photograph them in a studio against a stark background. He believed the studio could most closely capture their true natures.

Penn relished the chance to work in foreign locales, recalling in his 1974 book, "Worlds in a Small Room," that he had often daydreamed "of being mysteriously deposited (with my ideal north-light studio) among the Aborigines in remote parts of the earth."

Boo George for Love Magazine

2011-01-08T01:28:00.002Z

I just came upon this beautiful short film that Boo George did for Love Magazine. His style and aesthetic is both so classic and timeless.

"We tried to run but they shot us like we were buffalo" Louise Weasel Bear, survivor of the Wounded Knee massacre

2010-12-30T18:27:00.003Z

Aaron Huey has taken pictures on nearly every continent. His stories from Afghanistan, Haiti, Mali, Siberia, Yemen, and French Polynesia (to name just a few) on subjects as diverse as the Afghan drug war and the underwater photography of sharks, can be found in The New Yorker, National Geographic, the Smithsonian, Harper’s, and The New York Times.

Huey has spent the last 5 years visiting the Lakota people living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to create a photo journal of their lives. “My success is not measured in money,” he says. “I have no financial security, I have no savings account. I measure my success by asking myself if I’m telling a story that the world needs to hear, if I am educating people.”

Jewels of the Kalahari Featured in Trends, Jewellery and Forecasting Magazine (18th Edition)

2010-11-30T18:32:00.007Z

Jewels of the Kalahari in Forbes Life, November 2010 Issue

2010-11-11T11:49:00.003Z

Bright Idea in a War-Torn Motherland

2010-09-28T17:51:00.002+01:00

Check out the article on Zarif Design and her beautiful collection all made in Afghanistan in the London Evening Standard

Frida Kahlo - Jewellery Style Icon

2010-09-24T17:15:00.007+01:00

Inspiration

2010-09-24T12:08:00.005+01:00

Images from Africa, Herb Ritts

Real Rocks

2010-09-09T20:01:00.010+01:00

I was walking by the B Store today when my eye caught some serious rocks by New Zealand jeweller, Rob Upritchard. His jewels are literally rocks, his pieces are made from Granite and Greywacke rock to form simple and sculptural jewels. Robert selects his rocks when hiking through New Zealand, then spends days carving them into ice and pick axes, shovels and constellation amulets all carved from solid pieces of dense stone.

The exhibition is at the B Store, Savile Row, London.

Images taken from B Store Website.

The Darkroom is now stocking the Jewels of the Kalahari Collection

2010-07-22T16:43:00.007+01:00

The Darkroom, a concept store on Lamb's Conduit Street in London is now stocking the Jewels of the Kalahari collection. They curate an eclectic mix of high-end fashion, interior and lifestyle accessories alongside bi-monthly art and sculpture exhibitions.

Kenya Rising

2010-07-16T17:25:00.009+01:00

Suno has been around since 2008. Founder and designer, Max Osterweis has been collecting textiles from Kenya for a decade, which are prominent throughout his eclectic collection. He works with sample and pattern makers in New York, then the samples are sent to Kenya to be created by local craftspeople, showcasing Kenya's unique artistry. Suno's Autumn / Winter 2010 collection was inspired by the late 1960's American Interiors, traditional East African textiles, Klimt and travels to Turkey, Paris and India.

Hair-tastic!

2010-07-07T14:50:00.014+01:00

In the late 1950's and early 1960s, Nigerian women started wearing wigs, which nearly destroyed Nigeria's rich history of elaborate hairstyle traditions. For centuries, women had braided their hair into gorgeously intricate constructions. They would pass down the secrets of these designs and patterns from generation to generation. Then a infiltration of mass-produced foreign wigs gradually eradicated the knowledge base.

In the same way that so much indigenous culture is disappearing due to globalisation, wigs were an easy alternative to hairstyles that could take five hours to create. They were also modern and "Western" hairstyles; the international zeitgeist of the era certainly encouraged Western assimilation. As well as a reflection of culture and fashion, hair has long been a mark of personal and political preference for black women.

Photographer J.D. Okhai Ojeikere noticed the slow and steady impact wigs were having in Nigeria, and Ojeikere started to seek out and photograph traditional hairstyles. It was at a 1968 arts festival that he first took images devoted to Nigerian culture. His photographs of hairstyles would become his most extensive series. Anytime he saw an interesting hairstyle, he asked if he could photograph it. His collection has grown to more than 1,000 images.

Ojeikere states that: "All these hairstyles are ephemeral. I want my photographs to be noteworthy traces of them. I always wanted to record moments of beauty, moments of knowledge. Art is life. Without art, life would be static."

The Colourful and Mystical World of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré

2010-07-05T11:20:00.015+01:00

I ventured to the Tate Modern this weekend and saw the delightful and charming work of the celebrated African artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré from the Jean Pigozzi collection. Born on the Ivory Coast in 1923 and still living in Abidjan, Bouabré is not only self-taught, but is also among the first in his generation to have been exposed to the written word. The origin of all of Bouabré's work stems from a revelatory experience: on March 11 1948, “the heavens opened up before my eyes and seven colorful suns described a circle of beauty around their Mother-Sun, I became Cheik Nadro: ‘He who does not forget.’" Since childhood he has drawn compulsively, using materials readily available to him - postcard-sized pieces of paper, a ballpoint pen, and coloured pencils. His little pictures of human figures, animals, birds, insects, clouds, rocks, fruits, and trees are all drawn in a highly individual and touchingly naive style characterised by close observation and gentle humour. A single work by him might consist of hundreds of these drawings, all the same size, framed separately, and hung together on the gallery wall.

From then on Bruly Bouabré tackled every field of knowledge and collected his research in manuscripts about arts and traditions, poetry, tales, religion, esthetics, and philosophy, revealing himself to be an astonishing thinker, poet, encyclopedist, creator. Searching for a way to preserve and transmit the knowledge of the Bété people, as well as the knowledge of the entire world, he invented an alphabet of 448 monosyllabic pictograms to represent phonetic syllables. This endeavor earned Bouabré the legendary reputation of being another Champollion, in reference to the great scholar and linguist Jean-Paul Champollion (1790-1832), who discovered the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs. Bouabré’s alphabet, which can transcribe all human sounds, reflects the essence of his thought: to achieve universality and to unite mankind.

All images are taken from the Jean Pigozzi collection.

Jewels of the Kalahari featured in August 2010 issue of Vanity Fair

2010-07-05T09:23:00.004+01:00

The Inoue Brothers presents Ubuntu Collection

2010-07-03T21:53:00.006+01:00

I stopped by Dover Street Market on Friday and saw an inspiring new collection focused on the ancient art of beading, by The Inoue Brothers. The innovative Ubuntu collection stands for 'I am because we are', the philosophy of being one because of a community. The Inoue brothers are Japanese, although born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark, which clearly shows in their design ethos, which they have coined 'Scandinasian', mixing simplicity with a great eye for design. The brothers created the Ubuntu collection in South Africa, where they enlisted the skills of the craftswoman of Khayelitsha to help foster in the idea of a more altruistic approach to clothes making. Gazelle and the Creol Brothers helped with this creative process of combining craftsmanship with the rich cultural heritage of South Africa. The T-shirts are all hemp, 100% naturally grown.

Phyllis Galembo - The Colours of African Culture

2010-07-02T15:32:00.023+01:00

These incredible colourful, emotive images taken by Phyllis Galembo reflect the ritual adornment and spirituality of masquerade in Nigeria, Benin and Burkina Faso in West Africa. These portraits of masqueraders build on Galembo's work of the past twenty years photographing the rituals and religious culture in Nigeria, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica and Haiti.

The Womens Room Blog

2010-07-02T10:56:00.006+01:00

Have a look at the wonderful piece on the Jewels of the Kalahari on The Womens Room blog

Jewels of the Kalahari featured in Swarovski Gem Visions 2011 Trend Book

2010-07-02T10:37:00.003+01:00

Jewels of the Kalahari featured in July issue of Harper's Bazaar

2010-06-14T10:45:00.002+01:00

Jewels of the Kalahari featured in June issue of Marie Claire, Italia

2010-06-04T11:59:00.006+01:00

Jewels of the Kalahari available at Browns online

2010-05-10T11:50:00.002+01:00

The Jewels of the Kalahari is now available online at Browns

One Fine Thread's "Jewels of the Kalahari" collection is now available at Browns, London

2010-04-27T12:51:00.007+01:00

www.brownsfashion.com

W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

2010-04-01T10:26:00.002+01:00

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it. Begin it now.”

W. H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition.

Jewels of the Kalahari feature in the latest I-D Magazine

2010-03-25T15:52:00.003Z

Jewels of the Kalahari feature in Sphere Magazine

2010-03-24T12:38:00.006Z

Zarif Design features in The Financial Times - How to Spend it Magazine

2010-03-11T14:36:00.004Z

6 Billion Others Project shows a collection of experiences and philosophies of the world's inhabitants

2010-02-28T22:16:00.010Z

This is a poignant reminder that what binds us all together is greater than what divides us.

Living together...
"We live in amazing times. Everything moves at a crazy pace. I’m sixty years old, and when I think about how my parents lived, it seems scarcely believable. Today, we have at our disposal extraordinary tools for communication: we can see everything, know everything. The quantity of information in circulation has never been greater. All of that is very positive. The irony is that at the same time we still know very little about our neighbours. Now, however, the only possible response is to make a move towards the other person, to understand them. For in struggles to come, whether it is the struggle against poverty or climate change, we cannot act on our own. The times in which one could think only of oneself or of one’s own small community are over. From now on, we cannot ignore what it is that links us and the responsibilities that this implies. There are more than six billion of us on Earth, and there will be no sustainable development if we cannot manage to live together. That is why 6 Billion Others is so important to me. I believe in it because it concerns all of us and because it encourages us to take action. I hope that each one of us will want to reach out and make these encounters, to listen to other people and to contribute to the life of 6 Billion Others by adding our own experiences and expressing our desire to live together." Yann Arthus-Bertrand

See more on Yann Arthus-Bertrand's 6 billion others project here

Yann Arthus-Bertrand talks about the impact we have on our planet. A reminder that we don't want to believe what we know

2010-02-28T22:03:00.002Z

Designer, Saloni's film featuring the 'Jewels of the Kalahari'

2010-02-25T19:30:00.003Z

Saloni's New Mood Film Featuring the 'Jewels of the Kalahari'

2010-02-25T17:56:00.004Z

Fashion Designer, Saloni Lodha uses the Jewels of the Kalahari in Film of her Collection - Launching at New York Fashion Week

2010-02-18T12:21:00.012Z

Talented fashion designer, Saloni Lodha is showcasing her new collection at New York Fashion Week tomorrow at the Bowery Hotel. She will be showing a mood film of her collection, in which she has used the 'Jewels of the Kalahari' collection to accessorise her beautiful clothes. See more in Vogue here

The Vogue Blog

2010-01-29T16:10:00.004Z

Vogue featured a great write up about the 'Jewels of the Kalahari' collection on their blog. You can read it here.

Karl Blossfeldt

2010-01-26T10:23:00.006Z

Strikingly modern and inherently beautiful, Blossfeldt's photographs of plants, flowers and seed heads are as appealing today, as they were when they were first introduced to the public in 1928.

What made his work unique, was Blossfeldt's extreme technical mastery of photography. He specialised in macrophotography to enlarge his plant specimens and even designed a camera for this purpose. As a result, everyday garden flowers are presented in such a way that their rhythmic forms are emphasised to the extreme and the plants take on new and exotic characteristics. Blossfeldt wanted his work to act as a teaching aid and inspiration for architects, sculptors and artists. It was his firm belief that only through the close study of the intrinsic beauty present in natural forms, that contemporary art would find its true direction.

Today Blossfeldt's work is in the collections of the Museum Ludwig, Cologne; the National Library, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and many other important collections.

Rare Tribal Portraits from 1865 to Present Day

2010-01-16T12:59:00.019Z

These are tribal portraits: vintage & contemporary photographs from the African Continent. These rare images date from 1865 to the present day. Many of the early portraits have ‘studio’ settings consisting of portable backdrops and props and each gives a glimpse of the costumes, textiles, jewellery, scarification, architecture and rituals of the African continent. The earliest images are the breathtaking 19th century pioneer photographs by Theodore Delacheaux and Charles E Thiebaud to C Vincenti. My favourite are the sensual and beautifully composed images of Kenyan tribes taken by Mirella Ricciardi.

Tribal Portraits Vintage & Contemporary Photographs from the African Continent are available to buy at Bernard J Shapero Rare Books, 32 St George Street, London W1S 2EA Tel: 020 7493 0876. Bernard J Shapero Rare Books has gathered together under one roof what is possibly the largest group of photographs from the African Continent spanning 140 years.

Walt Whitman

2010-01-14T09:46:00.002Z

I love this excerpt by Walt Whitman. He offers a poignant message about the beauty of living.

"This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and the crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words but in the silent line of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body."

Boo George's Images of the Ladies of the Kalahari

2010-01-11T11:44:00.006Z

Jewels of the Kalahari Feature in HAND/EYE Magazine

2010-01-10T11:04:00.014Z

Have a look at the full article on the Jewels of the Kalahari written by Keith Recker in HAND/EYE Magazine.

THE ANCIENT BUSHMEN ENTER THE INTERNATIONAL JEWELRY MARKET

The Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert are almost as old as humanity itself. Geneticists tell us that they are perhaps the oldest group still walking the earth. Sadly, like many ancient peoples, they are among the poorest and most disenfranchised in their southern African homeland.

Poverty notwithstanding, for countless generations the Bushmen have made beautiful jewelry to adorn themselves and their loved ones. Largely isolated from the outside world until the last century, they created (and still create today) intricate pieces using wild seeds, sticks, bone, tortoiseshell, and most importantly of all, beads painstakingly hand made from shards of ostrich eggshell. With ingenuity and precision, the women turn some of the beads a rich brown by frying them or black by roasting them – in order to have three colors of beads with which to make patterns and designs.

Jewelry veteran Anna Haber, global director of marketing for emerald producer Gemfields, and talented London-based jeweler, Sabine Roemer recently collaborated with Bushmen women in Ghanzi, Botswana to create a unique 19-piece collection of jewelry comprised of necklaces, bracelets and earrings. The fashion-forward collection fuses the Bushmen’s traditional skills and natural materials with new materials including leather, silver, velvet and satin. By combining ancient designs with new inspiration, the collection captures the Bushmen’s long journey to link their rich cultural past with the modern world.

Haber’s Jewels of the Kalahari collaboration aims, however, at something beyond just beautiful jewelry. The end goals are to create awareness of the Bushmen’s plight through the storytelling traditions that are connected to their arts and crafts, and also to create a sustainable business for the tribe that will generate a consistent income and ongoing work. Jewelry making is an important source of income, particularly for the women, as well as vehicle for cultural continuity. Haber is currently searching for retailers who might make a commitment to working with the Bushmen so that their unique skills can find a broader home in the world.

Fashion and portrait photographer Boo George joined Haber and Roemer on their Kalahari adventure to document both the collection as well as the Bushmen’s imperiled way of life. In addition to the Bushmen’s strength, he captured a side of them that is so often forgotten – the exceptional humor, wisdom and beauty of the ladies. “The ladies have incredibly strong characters,” says Haber. “They are spirited, mischievous, so funny and joyful. Being around these unique women was such a life lesson for me. So many have HIV and have lost children. They receive little help or financial support from the men as many have turned to alcohol. It is the women that hold the communities together with their infectious personalities full of life, love, wisdom and humor. I believe that we, in the West, have a lot to learn from them.”

Haber and Roemer did indeed learn a few things. After some weeks of intense preparation, with Haber trying to nail down every detail of the designs they would bring to the Bushmen, master goldsmith Roemer commented, “Anna this is craft, it just happens. You cannot plan it.” This turned out to be truer even than Roemer imagined, and the pair had to adjust their working methods and sense of timing and deadlines to be in tune with their artisan-partners. “We spent a week working with a group of ten producers, all of whom were all women, and all but one had HIV. So they were very energetic in the mornings but after they had taken their medication in the afternoon they became understandably tired and distracted. The first day was the most challenging as Sabine and I came in with our Western ways of working, wanting to get everything done in a timely manner and efficiently. The ladies, though, have their own way of working that is more free and relaxed, so we soon adapted to their way. They start each morning with a prayer or a beautiful traditional song -- even we were singing the words after a few days. Afterwards, we would all sit and discuss ideas and the best way to create the designs, using the new materials combined with the traditional way they sew the shells. Some designs worked straight away and some were a process of trial and error.”

As the collection came together, photographer George recognized the exceptional beauty of a thirteen-year-old Bushman, Sekopaleina. Both of her parents died of HIV-related illnesses, and she is looked after by Mickie, one of the jewelry artisans. “She was so shy around us initially. But once Boo began to take pictures, the strength and force of her personality came out,” says Haber. “I am setting up a savings account for Sekopaleina to hopefully go towards higher education expenses in the future.”

Haber’s long-term commitment to the Bushmen now requires her to find retailers to bring attention to their situation with exhibitions of George’s photographs, and to help them earn income through sale of the jewelry collections. Some of London’s most forward-looking retailers like the Dover Street Market have sold pieces. But more is needed. Haber says she is fueled in her quest by the memory of the last day of working on the collection: “We are so proud of the collection and all enjoyed our time working together on this special project. The beautiful landscapes and unforgettable ladies – their hypnotic singing and dancing – will forever be imprinted in our minds. Through this collection, we hope that others will come to appreciate the work, as much as we do.”

Haber wishes to acknowledge the kind support and funding of Neo and Semane Khama, from Elan Botswana, as well as the collaboration of San Arts and Crafts, a fair trade organization that works directly with the Bushmen in Botswana. They ensure that the Bushmen crafts are fairly traded, working under the principles that trade can make sustainable and significant contribution to poverty reduction.

'Jewels of the Kalahari' Film

2010-01-10T01:40:00.002Z

Here is Charlie Ryan's short film on the making of the 'Jewels of the Kalahari' collection, capturing the process from the actual ostrich egg to the final beautifully crafted pieces modeled by a young Bushman girl, Sekopaleina.

Dancing in the Kalahari

2010-01-06T15:00:00.005Z

Wherever we went in the Kalahari, from the settlements to town, there were children and adults dancing and singing.

More of Boo George's Images of the 'Jewels of the Kalahari' Collection

2010-01-05T21:08:00.012Z

Truly Inspired as 2010 Begins

2010-01-03T20:14:00.011Z

I just came across some more pictures from our Botswana trip. Here is Sabine, Charlie, myself and Sekopaleina. This young girl of 13 years old modeled the 'Jewels of the Kalahari' collection so elegantly and professionally, even though she had never seen a camera before, she was such a natural! She has little in economic terms and has lost both her parents, yet her grace and strength continues to captivate and inspire me.

Wade Davis on the Worldwide Web of Belief and Ritual

2009-12-28T03:21:00.005Z

Anthropologist Wade Davis muses on the worldwide web of belief and ritual that makes us human. He shares breathtaking photos and stories of the Elder Brothers, a group of Sierra Nevada indians whose spiritual practice holds the world in balance.

I wanted to share this last paragraph of Wade Davis book, Light at the Edge of the World. A reminder of the importance of embracing and treasuring diversity.

"The notion that indigenous societies are archaic, that their very presence represents some impediment, is transparently wrong. David Maybury-Lewis has written, indigenous peoples do not stand in the way of progress; rather, they contribute to it if given a chance. Their cultural survival does not undermine the nation state; it serves to enrich it, if the state is willing to embrace diversity. And, most important of all, these cultures do not represent failed attempts at modernity; marginal peoples who somehow missed the technological train to the future. On the contrary, these peoples with their dreams and prayers, their myths and memories, teach us that there are indeed other ways of being, alternative visions of life, birth, death and creation itself. When asked the meaning of being human, they respond with ten thousand different voices. It is within this diversity of knowledge and practice, of intuition and interpretation, of promise and hope, that we will all rediscover the enchantment of being what we are, a conscious species aware of our place on the planet and fully capable not only of doing no harm but of ensuring that all creatures in every garden find a way to flourish."

Light at the Edge of the World

2009-12-26T18:37:00.003Z

I have just finished reading the book 'Light at the Edge of the World' by Wade Davis, an explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society. He magnificently portrays an insight into the wonders and varied insights of indigenous cultures. I wanted to share this excerpt as it reinforces the reason why I chose One Fine Thread as the name for my blog:

"For the Indians of the Sierra Nevada, everything begins and ends with the loom, and the metaphor of thread in the cosmic cloth. Constantly on the move as they gather food and various resources, the Indians refer to their wanderings as 'weavings,' each journey a thread woven into a sacred cloak over the Great Mother, each seasonal movement a prayer for the well-being of the people and the entire Earth. When the people of the Sierra plant a field, the woman sow lines of crops parallel to the sides of the plot. The men work their way across the field in a horizontal direction. The result, should the domains of man and woman be superimposed one upon the other, is a fabric. The garden is a piece of cloth. The surface of the Earth itself is an immense loom upon which the sun weaves the fabric of existence."

Ashes and Snow - Feather to Fire

2009-12-16T16:25:00.001Z

Gregory Colbert's amazing film!

Gregory Colbert's Mesmerising Images of the Bushmen

2009-12-16T14:17:00.003Z

“In exploring the shared language and poetic sensibilities of all animals, I am working towards rediscovering the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony with animals. The images depict a world that is without beginning or end, here or there, past or present.” —Gregory Colbert, Creator of Ashes and Snow

I love the serenity, yet magnificence of Colberts images of the Bushmen. He so beautifully captures the harmony between these forgotten people and their environment.

A Way of Life That Will Soon Become Extinct

2009-12-16T11:39:00.007Z

Fashion and portrait photographer, Boo George came on the Kalahari adventure to learn and experience a way of life that could soon disappear. Boo captured incredible strong imagery of the Bushmen, showing a side of them that is so often forgotten – the exceptional humour, wisdom and beauty of the ladies - contrasted with modern and empowering images of a young Bushman girl adorning the new collection of jewellery. The images convey a vulnerability and sadness combined with the Bushmen woman’s unbreakable spirit and sense of hope.

A Taste of the Zarif Design Collection and the Talented Craftswoman in the Workshop in Kabul

2009-12-15T16:57:00.002Z

Zarif Design shows in London and Paris!

2009-12-15T16:32:00.006Z

I have been honored to represent Zarif Design in London for the last 6 months. I met the designer and founder of Zarif Design, Zolaykha Sherzad in New York in 2008, we immediately connected, I was so inspired by her and I loved her collection of jackets, blouses, dresses and skirts. I have developed a penchant for the jackets, I have already have three. They are inspired by the traditional mens chapans or jackets in Afghanistan but the lines are modern and beautifully fitted, the silver buttons are cast from antique coins bearing Greek and Persian inscriptions. Time Style and Design have written a superb article about Zolaykha's work at http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1838865_1838862_1838747,00.html

We just held a trunk show in boutique, Rous Iland in Mayfair, London, we managed to sell most of the collection in half a day. Even the Ambassador of Afghanistan came to learn more about the great work Zolaykha is doing in Kabul to generate employment for local craftspeople, whilst drawing positive attention to the beauty and rich culture and traditions of Afghanistan. He was so impressed he made an order for a Zarif coat!

Simultaneously, Zolaykha Sherzad was in Paris introducing the Zarif Design collaboration with Agnès B. An intriguing and successful association of traditional Afghan fabrics and western cuts. Agnès B will have the pleasure of proposing a selection of clothes from the Zarif Design collection to her customers at the boutique Rue du Jour in Les Halles, as of Wednesday December 9th. All profits from the sale of the collection, will directly benefit the 54 craftspeople employed by Zarif Design in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The Other Side of the Bush

2009-12-12T17:09:00.001Z

Boo George's beautiful images of a desolate garage in the middle of the bush and a man of the Kalahari.

Behind the Scenes in the Kalahari

2009-12-12T17:01:00.002Z

The Producers

2009-12-09T12:44:00.002Z

Work in Progress

2009-12-09T12:43:00.002Z

Sabine Taking a Break

2009-12-09T12:37:00.001Z

A Beautiful and Very Special Young Girl from the Kalahari

2009-12-09T12:05:00.000Z

The Three Cowboys of the Desert

2009-12-09T12:04:00.001Z

The Old Ladies of the Kalahari

2009-12-09T11:41:00.001Z

We spent some time in the settlements outside of Ghanzi, where we met the most stylish older women I have ever come across. They all had an inherent style mixing patterns, layering and accessorizing with great flair. I have a feeling that Dries Van Noten has taken his inspiration from these beautiful ladies!

The Jewels of the Kalahari Collection

2009-12-09T11:32:00.002Z

I have just arrived back to the UK after an inspiring and successful week with photographer - Boo George, film maker - Charlie Ryan and jeweller - Sabine Roemer in Botswana. We spent one week in Ghanzi, a small town in the Kalahari where a large community of Bushman live. Sabine and I collaborated with the Bushmen on a collection of jewellery made out of Ostrich egg-shells. We created a 15 piece collection that fuses the traditional with new materials.
The talented photographer, Boo George created the most beautiful images of a young Bushman girl modeling the collection in the Desert of the Kalahari.

British Actress Natascha McElhone Wearing a Handmade Zarif Afghan Jacket

2009-11-25T11:45:00.005Z

The enchanting Natascha McElhone looked so elegant on Monday night, wearing a handmade jacket created by Zarif Design at the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards held at the Royal Opera House.

The 'Zarif Design' lines are designed and produced in Kabul, employing the skills of local Afghan women working with fabrics original to Afghanistan. Intricate hand embroidery and brightly coloured, silk 'chapans' are combined to create these strikingly unique and magnificently finished coats. The timeless lines of this elegant series of fitted shirts, coats and skirts perfectly bridge Central Asian tradition with contemporary Western sensibility. 'Zarif', meaning 'precious' or 'fine' in Dari.

I am now working with Zolaykha to help sell and promote her collection. On the 10th December from 2pm - 9pm, I am hosting a trunk show at boutique Rous Iland, 45 Clarges Street, Mayfair, London.

Kalahari Dreaming.....

2009-11-24T06:54:00.007Z

It was Lily Cole who initially got me involved in working with the 'Bushmen of the Kalahari' a couple of years ago after she spent some traveling through Botswana. She came back from the trip inspired by the resilience and beauty of the Bushmen and wanted to help in any way she could to create awareness around their situation and promote the jewellery they make out of ostrich egg shells. I have always had a passion for tribal jewellery and have been picking up wonderful pieces every time I travel to faraway lands. Funnily enough I was just mentioning to Lily that I wanted to start working with indigenous communities to help get their craft to first world markets. So when she told me that she had samples of the Bushmen's jewellery at her model agency, I immediately went over to look at them and fell in love with the timeless designs-so modern and unique-it is no wander that artists like Picasso and Klee were so inspired by the art and crafts of Africa. We started working on introducing the jewellery to stores and to the press in the UK straight away. Lily was photographed for Vogue, The Telegraph, Vogue Brazil to name a few.

Dover Street Market loved the collection and made a decision to buy it in 5 minutes. Then I sold the collection to jewellery boutiques Felt and Erickson Beamon, as well as Rebecca Hossack Gallery who specialises in indigenous art. The stores have continued to make orders over the last 2 years and I have spent time in Botswana helping to advise on importing, retail, designs and quality, in order to create a sustainable business model and awareness of the work in the first world markets.

I decided to plan another trip to Botswana to work on a new collection, taking with me a very talented fine jeweller and craftswoman from London, Sabine Roemer. The idea is to collaborate with the Bushmen, where they can apply their traditional skills to create a fashion-orientated collection which fuses natural resources available to them, such as the ostrich eggshells and recycled glass beads with new materials including leather, silver, velvet and satin. I am also taking a brilliant and very talented photographer Boo George, to take portraits of the Bushmen. We are hoping to show a side to the them that is so overlooked, images that convey the wisdom and pride of these gentle people that are the oldest inhabitants of southern Africa.

The jewellery is created out of ostrich egg shells that they have been making for countless generations. Largely isolated from the outside world until the last century the Bushmen created intricate pieces using wild seeds, sticks; bone, leather; tortoiseshell and most importantly of all, beads painstakingly created from ostrich egg-shell.

Each bead is hand-made from individual shards of broken eggshell. With ingenuity and precision the women turn some of the beads a rich brown by frying them or black by roasting them. This way they create three colours of beads with which to make patterns and designs. To give their creativity even greater rein, they also make beads from small slices of porcupine quills cleverly incorporating these into their work.

The Bushmen are almost as old as time itself. These gentle people have existed in harmony with the animals and nature of their native Kalahari for countless generations. Their simple, honest ways are today under peril from the unyielding tide of modern progress which threatens the only life they have ever known. Often victimised by their more powerful neighbours and dispossessed of their lands the 100,000 San in southern Africa are amongst the poorest and most disenfranchised of southern Africa’s people. They battle with extreme poverty and the ravages of AIDS on a daily basis and are largely dependent on the handouts.

Irving Penn - Small Trades

2009-11-17T17:16:00.000Z

I love these Irving Penn images of skilled trades and crafts people taken in Paris, London and New York in the 1950's. All are dressed in their work clothes and carrying the tools of their trade. A neutral backdrop and natural light provided a stage on which his subjects could present themselves with dignity and pride.

“Taking people away from their natural circumstances and putting them into the studio in front of a camera did not simply isolate them, it transformed them. Sometimes the change was subtle; sometimes it was great enough to be almost shocking. But always there was transformation.” Irving Penn

These images are currently on show at the Getty Museum until 10th January 2010.

http://www.getty.edu/

Galliano, McQueen or the Surma and Mursi Tribes of the Omo Valley

2009-11-16T18:24:00.000Z

Throughout time designers from the West have taken inspiration from indigenous communities worldwide. Whilst the Surma and Mursi tribes of the Omo Valley in truly creative style have taken inspiration from their own environment to elaborately decorate themselves.

Oscar Wilde

2009-11-16T16:53:00.001Z

"One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art."

Frida Kahlo - Art or Craft?

2009-11-15T17:19:00.000Z

"It is as the canvas, her appearance as art. The art of self-expression becomes self- expression as art." Baddeley

Frida Kahlo always adorned herself in the colourful traditional Mexican dress and unique jewellery that she often found on the street stalls of Mexico City. Kahlo's image continues to inspire the fashion industry, who adapt and translate her style into modern looks.

Hanging by a Thread

2009-11-15T16:05:00.001Z

I wanted to start a blog to highlight the importance of global traditions of craftsmanship and ancient skills that are dying out due to mass production. Our current way of living is so dependent on the use of fossil fuels, causing great pressure on our fragile planet. Unless we change the way we consume and make our products we cannot sustain the rate in which we have been living since the industrial revolution.

Indigenous communities have always created arts and crafts so rich in culture and unique in design, yet their work has never been in the forefront of the luxury market. For many communities, crafts are their only way of survival as their ways of life have come under threat. Many crafts are hanging on by a thread, as ancient skills are being lost, due to the children being forced to move away from the communities into cites to get jobs, therefore craft skills are not being passed down the generations.

We must work to keep these ancient crafts alive as we move between cultures, to evolve beyond trends and embrace individuality, to be conscious about what and how much we buy and the effects it has on the planet.

Satish Kumar, editor of Resurgence magazine so beautifully wrote; "We must change from being mere consumers of goods and services to genuine makers of arts and artifacts. In the present state of the world and under influence of unsustainable consumerist culture, human beings are reduced to the condition of passive recipients of factory made objects. This must change.

In order to build resilient communities of the future we meed to move towards a state where we humans are active participants in the process of life and in making of things that are beautiful, useful and durable. Where fossil-fuel-powered production is part of the problem, the arts and crafts are part of the solution."