Why Designer Calla Haynes Turned Her Fabric Archive into Artisanal Rugs
I’m staring at a giant blue shaggy rug embedded with splotches of fuchsia when designer Calla Haynes swoops over, points to the fuchsia bits and whispers, “that was my prom dress.”
We’re in a well-appointed Rosedale mansion replete with OTT meat-and-cheese-spread for the launch party of The Boucharouite Project, the name of Haynes’ latest artisanal rug venture, available at a pop-up at Holt Renfrew on Bloor Street in Toronto from April 5th to June 4th. More than a mouthful, Boucharouite is type of Berber handicraft that repurposes scrap materials into extremely sturdy yet visually stunning rugs.
When Haynes shuttered her namesake label, Calla, in 2015, she was left with a studio full of luxury fabric and custom patterned textiles with no way to use them. At the time, Haynes was living in Paris’ Garment District and was shocked by the amount of textile waste she saw heaped into dumpsters. Rather than simply abandon the fabrics in the landfill, she wanted to find a meaningful way to give a second life to her fabric archive.
Eventually, she landed on Boucharouite, a textile tradition that began in Morocco in the 1960s as a reaction to the rising cost of wool. Rather than pay the premium, Berber women began ripping up old clothes to make rugs out of the scraps; charouite translates literally to “rag.”
When Haynes first floated the idea of turning her archive of fancy designer fabric into rag rugs, the concept didn’t quite register. “I was telling people I wanted to send them beautiful silks and wools from Paris and have them make the rugs. The craftspeople thought it was weird,” she says. But eventually she was able to find a broker who understood her motives, and then drove her out to a remote village in Morocco to meet Naima, Fatna, and Efouzia, the artisans who create the rugs.
Each rug uses up to 50 metres of fabric and takes 30-40 hours of weaving to complete. They come in two traditional patterns, Boucharouite and Azilal, and can be custom ordered through Holt Refrew’s H Project until the beginning of June.
“The Boucharouite Project represents the things I have held the most dear about working in fashion: craftsmanship, and having fun with colour and texture,” says Haynes.
But back to the prom dress. It turns out Haynes wasn’t actually so rabid about recycling that she picked apart her prom dress. “There was a box in my parents’ house of all the unused fabric from all my high school projects, and there was a metre left over of this pink fuchsia raw silk [from my prom dress] that I bought on Queen Street West. I just put it in my suitcase one day and it joined the rest of the archive and got sent off.”
What goes around really does come around.
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://fashionmagazine.com/style/calla-haynes-boucharouite-project/&title=Why Designer Calla Haynes Turned Her Fabric Archive into Artisanal Rugs&picture=https://fashionmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Calla-Haynes-Headshot-800x1066.jpg&description=I’m staring at a giant blue shaggy rug embedded with splotches of fuchsia when designer Calla Haynes swoops over, points to the fuchsia bits and whispers, “that was my prom dress.”
We’re in a well-appointed Rosedale mansion replete with OTT meat-and-cheese-spread for the launch party of The Boucharouite Project, the name of Haynes’ latest artisanal rug venture, available at a pop-up at Holt Renfrew on Bloor Street in Toronto from April 5th to June 4th. More than a mouthful, Boucharouite is type of Berber handicraft that repurposes scrap materials into extremely sturdy yet visually stunning rugs.
[caption id="attachment_337932" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Photography via Holt Renfrew[/caption]
When Haynes shuttered her namesake label, Calla, in 2015, she was left with a studio full of luxury fabric and custom patterned textiles with no way to use them. At the time, Haynes was living in Paris' Garment District and was shocked by the amount of textile waste she saw heaped into dumpsters. Rather than simply abandon the fabrics in the landfill, she wanted to find a meaningful way to give a second life to her fabric archive.
Eventually, she landed on Boucharouite, a textile tradition that began in Morocco in the 1960s as a reaction to the rising cost of wool. Rather than pay the premium, Berber women began ripping up old clothes to make rugs out of the scraps; charouite translates literally to “rag.”
When Haynes first floated the idea of turning her archive of fancy designer fabric into rag rugs, the concept didn't quite register. “I was telling people I wanted to send them beautiful silks and wools from Paris and have them make the rugs. The craftspeople thought it was weird,” she says. But eventually she was able to find a broker who understood her motives, and then drove her out to a remote village in Morocco to meet Naima, Fatna, and Efouzia, the artisans who create the rugs.
Each rug uses up to 50 metres of fabric and takes 30-40 hours of weaving to complete. They come in two traditional patterns, Boucharouite and Azilal, and can be custom ordered through Holt Refrew’s H Project until the beginning of June.
[caption id="attachment_337934" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Photography via Holt Renfrew[/caption]
“The Boucharouite Project represents the things I have held the most dear about working in fashion: craftsmanship, and having fun with colour and texture,” says Haynes.
But back to the prom dress. It turns out Haynes wasn't actually so rabid about recycling that she picked apart her prom dress. "There was a box in my parents' house of all the unused fabric from all my high school projects, and there was a metre left over of this pink fuchsia raw silk [from my prom dress] that I bought on Queen Street West. I just put it in my suitcase one day and it joined the rest of the archive and got sent off."
What goes around really does come around.
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