In 1993, with a group of stylist friends, Li Edelkoort created Heartwear, a non-for-profit association that helps to sustain handcraft knowledge and so, collaborates with artisans to tailor their products for export, without compromising the skill, knowledge, culture and environment of the region involved. Design talent is coupled with marketing insight. Trend forecasting skills are balanced with historical and cultural knowledge. Heartwear is celebrating its 15th birthday this year!
Motivation
Heartwear has chosen to manufacture high-quality products and to distribute them on a confidential scale, by mail order, direct sales and wholesaling. Once Heartwear has established a link with a region or a collective, it tries to sustain a long-term relationship by developing and evolving the local offer. These cottage industries will ultimately become independent, generating an economic impulse to the region through local and export markets.
Collection
Among its many projects, Heartwear has developed indigo textiles for home and fashion with artisans in Benin, ceramics with potters in Morocco, and khadi cotton in India.
Shop
Each year a week-long sale of items in Paris raises funding to sustain the organization’s endeavours for the following year, with all profits being re-invested in the home country of each project. In recent years, the sales have travelled to other countries in Europe and North America
Partners
* Karen Petrossian
* Li Edelkoort
* Yves Venot
* Daniel Cendron
* Andrée Broesecke
* Donald Namekong
* Bess Nielsen
* Sophie Carlier
* Marianne Honvault
* Nanna Pause
* Susie Tompkins
* Anne Etot
Address:
30 boulevard Saint Jacques
75014 Paris