I starting the week off with Cyndi Lauper… yeah. It’s like that. I’ve been on this strange modern day hip-hop/cheesey 1980s kick lately. I’m always nervous the person sitting next to me on the T is going to get one listen to my iPod mix and think I’m a total nut (which actually wouldn’t be that far off base….) Anyway….
Today’s brand is Soi Distant, a brand designed by Rawan Alami and manufactured in the West Bank.
Alami, a Palestinian who grew up in Jerusalem, came to Canada in 2002 by way of Great Britain. She enrolled in the Academy of Design and studied fashion marketing for a year before she founded Soi Disant, her company that she hopes will bring Palestinian cross-stitching to North American markets.
“I want to open Western eyes to Eastern culture,” she says over the phone from Jerusalem. “Westerners have a different idea of what Palestine is. It’s not a desert or a typical third world country. We’re on our way to modernizing.”
What makes Soi Disant even more unusual is its labour force. The clothes are made by 20 women at a factory in Bethlehem, working through a Palestinian women’s co-op. She purposely chose to work there, she says, because “I wanted to help people. So many women there are unemployed, and they are very good at cross-stitching.”
All the designing is done at her office here and she goes over to Jerusalem to supervise production. Her clothes, mostly tops, are “trendy, but with a touch of Palestinian culture.”*
I love her designs, especially the grey top above. You can find her designs at my favorite place for indie designers, MudShark!
excerpt from article by PATRICK LEJTENYI, Montreal Mirror
