About us
Our Vision
About Anne
Anne Kiwia founded her label in 2012. Starting out with a sustainable vision and a sewing machine she began from grassroots. Today, she mentors the team of women who work with her, their product is outlet in many countries and the brand is growing.
Taught to sew and embroider by her grandmother, Anne Kiwia entered the world of matching colours and textures at a very young age.
Our Product
Finding particularly unusual fabric prints is what the team loves best. Every now and then Anne finds a garment that make all the women stop what they are doing, abandon their sewing machines and group around to feel, exclaim, laugh.
The Healing Room
As their skills have grown, so has their confidence. The joy of being productive and providing for their children has forged a strong community bond – and it all began in the workshop of Anne Kiwia, the refuge they now call The Healing Room.
“The women who work with me have become my family. Our workplace is a heaven where we can talk openly, laugh together, work hard and create. But more importantly, this place gives us all the space to cry, to sift through our pain, and to heal.”
Anne Kiwia
See our Shop on Etsy!
Our website and our shop is currently moving to a new and safer place! It won't take long until the shop with all our unique headbands is live here again.
Meanwhile, please visit our shop on Etsy to find some of our highlights!
A Note From Anne
I see you as you hold together the fragments of a ripped and shredded life.
But I also see that you do not just hold them together. You weave them with beauty and with love. You draw upon impossible resources that bring forth gardens of loveliness; you grow families from nothing and work tapestries of artistry all along the path. You sculpt masterpieces from the scraps of broken hearts and the glue of your strength turns them into gold.
You, my sisters, are strong. I am proud to know you.
Our Product
There is a shortage of trained staff in Tanzania. The result is that each staff member is taught how to sew the headbands, and Anne takes on this training personally. All of her colleagues have become highly skilled in production. Meticulous care at every stage is crucial, from cutting exact patterns to navigating tricky seams. This close attention to detail is what gives Anne Kiwia’s label the high-end finish that Anne herself expects.
Anne and her team choose mostly natural fabrics to rework into headbands. Each individual headband is carefully assembled from selected, complimentary fabrics, and then hand-sewn by Tanzanian seamstresses into crowns for beautiful women worldwide.
“With our headbands, we want to show that a high-end fashion product can be produced in Africa. Thereby we create new jobs and motivate a new generation of empowered women.” – Anne Kiwia
Our Story
The colourful, busy streets of Dar Es Salaam gripped Anne’s imagination, and in the marketplace she discovered a goldmine of inspiration amongst piles of old clothes. Within this resource was born her iconic up-cycled headband that has become the vehicle to spread Anne’s message: a reminder to women of their amazing strength and beauty.
Nowadays, a productive morning finds Anne sifting through mountains of pre-loved clothing in the markets of Dar es Salaam where she handpicks vintage fabrics. By utilising up-cycled clothes Anne harvests the reward of world-class quality material. The items that she chooses are rescued and taken back to her studio. There, she carefully trims lengths of fabric that can be transformed, and the piecing together of the next generation of headbands begins.
And so continues the process by which Anne creates her unique, eco-friendly pieces.
Our Goals:
- To promote teamwork and unity through business activities;
- To assist women to provide for their families and gain confidence through skills;
- To establish eco-friendly pathways in tailoring, encourage the care of environment and promote up-cycling.