Maiwa is more than just a store, though—beyond scarves and blankets, Kwon is in the business of selling stories, and selling pieces of art that are labours of love, not labours of necessity. Each dye pattern or set of stitching is its own dialect; the textile pieces are statements from the hands of their makers. The items sold at Maiwa are lover letters written in cotton or sealed with indigo, while Kwon and her team take the role of the postman, delivering each precious message faithfully to the homes of those ready and eager to listen. Continue reading

Tim McLaughlin and Charllotte Kwon have contributed a feature article to V&A Magazine's special issue on the Fabric of India.

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The Graduate Liberal Studies Program at SFU has asked Charllotte Kwon and Tim McLaughlin to be two of six individuals who will take on the role of Shadbolt Community Scholars.

The Shadbold Fellowship honours the belief in art and craft championed by west coast artists Doris and Jack Shadbolt. Continue reading

On Thursday June 12th Charllotte Kwon, owner of Maiwa Handprints and founder of the Maiwa Foundation, received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Fraser Valley for her work empowering artisans from developing nations and battling poverty by providing a market for their traditional crafts.

 

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In March of 2008 CBC radio's Sheryl MacKay came to the Maiwa Loft and interviewed Charllotte Kwon, Owner of Maiwa Handprints and director of the Maiwa Foundation. The interview aired on March 22 on Sheryl's program North by Northwest. We asked Sheryl if we could post the interview on our website and she agreed.  Continue reading

The garments that most of us don each morning are usually mass-produced, the work of many pairs of anonymous hands in factories on the other side of the planet. One person makes sleeves, another sews collars, and someone else seams the various pieces of the shirt or jacket together, all from synthetically dyed fabric that rolls off mechanized looms as fast as this morning's newspaper. But this is only in the industrialized world. In many countries, the textiles that people wear owe their decoration, dyeing and hand-weaving to techniques that date back thousands of years. Continue reading

In 1999, on one of her frequent visits to the craftspeople working with the Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS) co-operative, Charlotte Kwon, who runs the Maiwa Handprints in Canada, was greatly impressed by the quality of the embroideries. What she saw was beyond what she expected for the high-end retail market. "These are of collector or museum quality," she gushed.

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Charllotte Kwon is the recipient of the 2002 award for Entrepreneur/Innovator.

"Her business is a model of social responsibility, contributing to improved social and economic standards for artisans. Since 1994 she has focused largely on Indian crafts in order for her to play a more active role in the betterment of standards with the craftspeople with whom she has established relationships and does business. Her involved approach allows her to bypass middlemen to support and promote independence and sustainability in the craft sector."

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Granville Island entrepreneur cut from a different cloth. Continue reading