Tala Barbotin Khalidy

Grey Sheep

talabkhalidy

Location

brooklyn / united states

Graduation year

2018

Main Manufacturing Countries

lebanon

united states

Contact

Tala was exposed to fashion from an early age, immersed in the textile industry through her family in Lebanon, and has been working in design and sourcing for over 7 years in cities like Paris, Berlin, New York or Beirut.

During her time in NY, she quickly noticed most people were not aware of the Middle East’s rich cultural background and instead there was a fear developed around the area and what came from it. In turn, because of its representation in the media, mainly focusing on the conflicts of the region, highly skilled artisans in the Levant were slowly left without work.

Tala then sought out to investigate Middle Eastern embroidery techniques and started working with local artisans to incorporate these in collections of contemporary clothing, as a way to perpetuate the craft, increase jobs in the field, and reintroduce the area through the lens of culture.

Through personal experience, Tala also noticed the potential of embroidery as a meditative tool, which encouraged her to develop Embroidery as an Occupational Therapy workshops with Womankind in New York, a residential shelter for victims of human trafficking, sexual violence and domestic violence. The workshops aim to reconnect people with the creative aspect of sewing, increase their focus and clarity, heal from trauma, as well as help perpetuate the craft. They are now being taught around NY in various NGOs and healing centers.

Wanting to explore the correlation between clothing, sewing, and meditation further, Tala underwent over 300h of training to become a meditation teacher, and incorporates this knowledge in both the brand philosophy, and the embroidery workshops. She teaches meditation weekly at Good Move, and Three Jewels, in New York.

Latest Collection

SIRA

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Sira consists of a system iteration and a collection of garments and accessories that focus on revaluing embroidery as a craft and explore its potential as a healing therapy method.

THERAPEUTIC CRAFT
My personal experience with embroidery led me to research its use as a therapy method, and it was my belief entering this collaboration that embroidery had the potential to become a powerful tool in trauma healing, if it were introduced and spread as a service in the human advocacy community. I therefore entered a collaboration with the Womankind organization to provide and teach mindful embroidery workshops to victims of domestic abuse, human trafﬁcking and sexual violence.

This part of Sira aims to apply the notion of embroidery as therapy in the context of a weekly encounter at a Womankind residence, where participants have the opportunity to develop mentally and spiritually in a safe space, by learning how to master embroidery techniques. With these embroidery workshops, I hope to ﬁnd ways for participants to work through trauma and restore conﬁdence in themselves using the beneﬁts of craft methods.

A CONSTRUCTION METHOD

The second part of Sira is axed on developing new methods to restore the value of embroidery as an interactional craft.

In order to achieve this, in place of using machine sewing to assemble garment parts, embroidery motifs hold parts of the clothes together. This process allows us to reconsider embroidery in a functional way, as opposed to serving only a decorational purpose, which shifts our relationship towards craftsmanship and reconnects us with it.

REAPPRAISAL OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
Having Lebanese origins, I was able to observe that a great part of embroidery work from the Middle East had been disregarded or forgotten over time, due to generation shifts and the world distantiating itself from the Middle East and its heritage. Traditional and contemporary uses of embroidery stemming partly from the Middle East were combined in order to create textiles that reappraise cultural heritage in a contemporary way. This brings awareness to forgotten techniques, our consideration of hand skills and our relationship with clothing in a world of mass production and cheap unethical labor.