To start, where does your love for traditional textile crafting techniques come from? And how did this fascination grow into starting Tigra Tigra?

As an American designer, you collaborate with local artisans and women empowerment cooperatives in India, Namibia and South Africa. A very personal process where you reach for slower, more collaborative ways of working with a deeper purpose, and against overconsumption. Everything is sourced locally and made by hand. Afterwards, the textiles are transformed into garments in your studio in Los Angeles. What made you decide to collaborate with these specific communities?

With Tigra Tigra, you reinterpret ancient cultural textile-crafting techniques into new, different ways, merging East with West, and past with future, which you describe as handicraft futurism. How do you balance this juxtaposition between ancient handicrafts and forward-thinking experimental design?

Because of the hand-crafting aspect of the work – from African beadwork, hand applique to hand-dying, the textiles are unique and irregular, and show the beauty of imperfection, making us more conscious of the rhythm of nature and the beauty of the human hand. What is the value according to you, of a one-of-a-kind piece?

Do you actively keep on researching history in search of ancient textile techniques? How do you keep on educating and challenging yourself?

Your aesthetics are very much shaped from growing up in Miami, where there’s so much of a constructed reality with neon signs and kitschy things. Tigra Tigra feels like a fusion between ancient cultural traditions and modern Western culture. This to me, is a very honest conversation, as our world is so fluid, and we get influenced by many things that constantly challenge how we interpret the world around us. Coming from different cultures, how do you create an open, equal atmosphere for creative exchange, cultural flux and interaction between yourself and the local artisans you work with? How do you inspire each other? Do they have the freedom to express their own inspirations and creative voices?

What is the value of textiles as an artistic medium to tell stories according to you?

In your designs, you often use the Indian textile technique of ‘mashroo,’ which translates to ‘permitted.’ As it is forbidden to wear silk on the skin in Islamic law, mashroo is invented to wear silk without breaking religious customs; by making the inside from cotton. How do you keep yourself conscious of honouring and respecting these cultural and religious customs, when incorporating these techniques into your designs?

Lastly, after the pandemic, when we will be able to travel again, what countries are on your wish list to visit?