Made closely in part with Rachel Lehr, cofounder of Rubia, Inc., an NFP that works “to serve women in rural Afghanistan, through education, skills training and promotion of their hand-embroidered textiles... Rubia is creating new traditions in textiles by translating the heritage and skills of Afghan women into sustainable livelihoods.”
Loti is an effort to sustain and revive the traditional craft of the Darrai Noor region of Afghanistan and dispose of its toxic processes by overlaying their embroidery upon the contemporary craft process of wide-format digital printing. This venture ensures that the processes that have led us to where we are today will be sustained before they skip a generation and are forever lost or mass imitated.
Taking inspiration through nature, loti is a line of pillows initially made biculturally - in part here in the US, embodying the impressive, almost magical use of digital textile printing, and finished in Afghanistan, handcrafted by women in Darrai Noor. The dimensions of the pillows are chosen based on two factors; one - market desirability, and two, maximal use of yardage.
Loti encourages a cross-culture dialogue in fabric that shares and explores common beauty between two counties at war through revolutionary production linking producers, designers, and consumers in a hands-on way. In addition to a line of pillows, loti is a system that is built to enhance the economy of Afghanistan. Initially, loti fabric will be printed in the U...
