Woven Travels / woven basket bags

Since Fairtrade Fortnight's aim this year is to highlight the challenges climate change presents to rural farmers, we’d like to show you a short film we have made about the chairlady of one of the basket weaving groups we work closely with in Kenya: Madam Dorcas Ndinda, a farmer and greengrocer. 

This year, the Fairtrade Foundation is telling the stories of female cocoa farmers through its #SheDeserves campaign. We’re delighted to see the spotlight on women for Fairtrade Fortnight since the vast majority of our incredible weavers are female farmers. Like the cocoa farmers in West Africa, our weavers are juggling the demands of family life with the ups and downs of agricultural work and drought – weaving their wonderful baskets when and where they can for a more dignified life.

A new interiors colour palette is melting its way into our awareness as spring ebbs into summer, and it’s a revisiting of gentle, earthen tones like terracotta and taupe, gold, peach and blush. It's just a little bit gorgeous...

Peach: @michelleogundehin Instagram moodboard

This is a return to the earth, the sand and the soil - and possibly the perfect accompaniment to natural materials like sisal and palm. We’re calling this soothing colour palette Desert Dusk, because it’s all about natural hues, with an inclination towards warmer tones and soft, feminine curves. 

Lavusimo Woven Bowl

It’s a beautiful complement to the New Neutrals trend that took shape earlier this year, and it’s an ideal corollary of the everyday ‘super luxe’ trend that’s also big news at the moment – all that delicious velvet upholstery, marble and brass, and rich jewel tones we’re seeing in the homes and pixellated worlds of influencers like Erica Davies, @the_girl_with_the_green_sofa, and @thelondonchatter on Instagram. 

@junestudioamsterdam Instagram 

Elle Decoration’s Michelle Gundehin has written recently about the current rise of ‘povera’ finishes like rattan, bamboo, sisal and hemp being employed in the place of more traditionally ‘haute’ materials, and incorporated into the most luxe interiors spaces. 

It’s possibly part of a more seismic shift towards more sustainable materials and practices in homebuilding that has led a renewal of interest in natural fibres in the interiors world, and this speaks directly to everything we stand for at The Basket Room. 

Shop our Desert Dusk collection here.