I just love this handmade Etsy shop called Grace Design. Grace is a Toronto-based handbag and accessories brand utilizing found textiles by Canadian designer Alison Gledhill. Alison’s Spring collection has just been released in her Etsy shop!
When I was a child I saw a woman selling dresses made from sari silks at a market in my hometown of Victoria, British Columbia.
“I thought this fabric was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen and it conjured images of palaces and maharaj, smoky mysterious places, exotic smells and foreign music. At that time I vowed to myself that when I was old enough, I would go to India. Several years later, at the mature age of 20, I did in fact go to India and returned to Canada with a backpack full of sari silk. I promptly started sewing clothing, pillows and bags and selling them at local consignment shops. Since that time I have traveled far and wide in search of beautiful and unique textiles to use in my designs, from the Thar desert in Rajasthan, India to Tokyo, Japan to Oaxaca, Mexico.”
To this day I still lovingly gather textiles from around the world to use in my designs.
“Though I have traversed down many avenues in the past fourteen years, I always return to this and I know that this is what I am meant to do. After all this time, I can finally call myself self employed. Grace is a collection of accessories made from found, limited edition textiles that have been sourced through my travels. The fabrics I search for are storytellers, they speak of their history and traditions of craft, of adventures abroad, foreign marketplaces, culture and creativity.” -Alison Gledhill
