The Fabric of Dreams

Wow, what a fascinating guest lecture I had this afternoon. Aileen Brindle (a textile design graduate from Leeds Univeristy) came in and talked to us about her work in the textile industry. She is currently working with a remote tribe in the Philippines, helping them find a place in the market to sell their amazing work.

These tribes people have incredible creative abilities, producing beautiful 't’nalak' fabrics' from Abaca fibres. They have no machinery, every step from pulling the fibres from the abaca plants, to knotting each fibre together, to the long tedious weaving process, all is done by hand. None of the workers have any sense of time, no watches are worn, no clocks are hung, they start work when the cockerel crows and end when the crickets sing.

The natural abaca fibres (plant is similar to the banana plant)

Each 5 metre piece of fabric take one weaver 10 whole weeks to produce, from stripping the raw abaca to completing the final cloth.  The amount hours they work would  put most students to shame, (including myself !)

With no design teaching or training, it is hard to see where or how the Tiboli weavers come up with their incredibly intricate fabric designs. Well believe me or not.. they appear in their dreams!.

This is where Aileen has stepped in and aided the tribe in creating a marketable and a commercially viable range of products including 'The Dream Pillow', 'The Dream Journal' and Wall Panels which are 'Memories of the dream', all created from this gorgeous T'nalak fabric.

Keeping the traditional technique and the authenitic deisgn with a new contemporary edge... Perfect!

P.S. I wish I had more imagery of the beautiful fabrics and products, but unfortunatley the web is somewhat lacking on this subject at the minute! Apologies!