Weft Textiles Opens in the CBD

Textiles inspired and informed by communities are at the heart of Weft. It’s a new Adelaide start-up studio that pairs sustainably sourced fabrics – like certified organic French flax and cotton that is grown, spun and woven in Indonesia – with natural, botanical dyes. It’s by Samia Fisher, an interior designer who was put off by the consumption-driven realities of the industry after graduating from RMIT in Melbourne. “It didn’t really sit right,” she says. “People are willing to just throw money at a product without necessarily knowing how it’s made, or what the process behind it is.”

So, at a loose end, she got the hell out and found inspiration. “In the last few years I’ve been travelling to America and Jamaica, which led me to this project. I got inspired by the way they live over there – going into other communities, textiles have so much history,” she explains. “For the last year I’ve been studying natural dyeing, and how textiles take to the dye, all the different variations – it’s more scientific than you’d think.”

The results are the tea towels, soft furnishings, bathrobes and bed linen that make up Weft’s first line. Pink herringbone, indigo linen and mottled greens lie stacked and draped about the label’s newly minted Renew Adelaide space; a quiet spot in Parc Arcade off Gawler Place. Its white walls are adorned with framed photographs Fisher shot in Tarum, the zero-waste workshop in Ubud where Weft’s latest textiles were dyed.

For Fisher, the techniques behind the products are as important as the end result. “It’s more about the process you learn while dyeing, and what you pick up while going into communities.”

UPDATE 5/12/2017: Weft now operates out of Ensemble.

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