MTEJA: Lavender Stripe Woven Shopper
MTEJA is a striped woven shopper made from Kenyan sisal, with horizontal pastel stripes of soft lavender and sapling green above vertical stripes of lavender and soft yellow. With its soft leather carry handles, this is a carry-all for every occasion. Use yours as an everyday handbag with plenty room to pack for weekend breaks, market trips and beach days – they come in two handy sizes.
The women who produce these woven shoppers are led by chairlady Mbeti who set up this weaving group single-handedly. She now manages twelve weaving groups with over thirty weavers in each group – virtually all of them women who have been taught this traditional, income-generating craft by their mothers and grandmothers. Bold Mbeti built a weavers’ centre with her savings, and it’s from here that she runs production, stores basket weaving materials and supplies, and prepares completed orders for shipping.
These orders keep her hundreds of weavers in regular work, and able to provide for their own families through this flexible, portable and sociable craft.
Material: SISAL AND LEATHER HANDLES
Dimensions:
LARGE - 36cm W x 26cm H x 24cm D | Handle Drop: 15cm
JUMBO - 50cm W x 34cm H x 32cm D | Handle Drop: 16cm
If you need a specific size please let us know prior to placing your order.
Please note, as this is a handmade product, dimensions & colour may vary from those shown in the photographs.
HANDMADE IN KENYA
Our journey into sustainable style began in Kenya, and the lion’s share of our woven baskets are Kenyan-made. Whilst every region of Kenya boasts its own rich natural bounty, each cooperative we partner with offers expertise in its own unique form of basketry. Weaving, dyeing and grass-rolling techniques differ across the regions as much as basket shapes, patterns and structures. These precious crafts are woven through the generations within families - passed along continuous thread from mother to daughter - protecting and preserving an art form as old as man.
Vast and colourful, vibrant and bursting with natural beauty and style, our fair trade baskets are as eclectic as their homeland and its people. From sisal grass to doum palm, banana leaf fibres to palm leaf, each weaving cooperative works with what is locally available and only what can be sustainably sourced, to produce beautiful baskets which are 100% Kenyan made, and ethically produced. All cow hide bag tags, straps, and basket labels are made from leather sourced as a by-product of the food industry. Natural dyes come from pounded roots, bark and vegetables of the region, whilst all synthetic dyes are sustainably sourced.
From the Kamba tribe to the camel-herding Ariaal pastoralists of Northern Kenya, you can read more about the lives of the Kenyan weavers we work with - and the wonderful baskets they produce - below.
