Artisanal Craftsmanship Quotes

As I've said a million times, I'm obsessed with Liya Kebede's LemLem line. The pieces, made by artisans in her native Ethiopia, are perfect for summer! I'm also a big fan of jewelry line Lulu Frost. Designer Lisa Salzer and I have been friends forever, and I love how she incorporates vintage pieces into her jewelry.

The creatives, they want to connect with people. These artists, the clothing designers, they want to connect with people the same way that music gets to connect with people. But the cost of silk is too expensive. And they won't lower their quality levels. So I can spend $2 million on a record and give it out in a democratic way. They could spend all their time making the greatest dress in the world, and it's just impossible to hand-make that many.

Ritu Kumar's clothes are totally great. Her embroidery is perfect. She lives up to her name over and over again.

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

It should be the privilege of every worker to take advantage of all the improved methods of working that relieve him from the tedium and fatigue of purely mechanical toil, for by this means he gains leisure for the thought necessary to working out his designs, and for the finer touches that the hand alone can give. So long as he remains master of his machinery it will serve him well, and his power of artistic expression will be freed rather than stifled by turning over to it work it is meant to do.

I like a lot of independent brands - Melbourne's Kloke, Handsom and Neuw Denim, and Bassike in Sydney. It's easier to be proud of what you're wearing if you've met the people behind the brand and there's more of a personal story.

The one thing I'm really excited about is that the Saint Heron shop is not grounded in just fashion and clothing. We have connected with artists and artisans in every landscape.

We've lost these qualities, these abilities to do something by hand. Some illustrators have it still, but it's just not art. We have photography. We have cameras and computers that do it better and faster.

With a father who is a fabulous craftsman, I was raised with the fundamental belief that it is only when you personally work with a material with your hands, that you come to understand its true nature, its characteristics, its attributes, and I think - very importantly - its potential.

Nothing feeds the center of being so much as creative work. The curtain of mechanization has come down between the mind and the hand.

I always say I hope to God I die in a town with a good tailor, a good shoemaker, and perhaps someone who's interested in a little quelque chose d'autre.

For me, haute couture is a necessity. I never would have done this job were it not for haute couture. It is a comfort, a security. I almost feel it is our duty to continue. Haute couture is France. We have to keep all the skills and craftmanship alive.

In my industry, a shirt and a shoe are still made the exact same way they were 80 years ago.

The big difference between couture and ready-to-wear is not design. It is the fabrics, the handwork, and the fittings. The act of creation is the same.

150 years ago in [Charles] Dickens's time there was at least a sense of craft. So some of the things people had inside of them, they had the possibility of expressing in the making of things - even in a daily way with their clothes or their food. People made a good deal of both themselves. Now our daily lives are almost all consumption. Craft plays a tiny role.

You can always spot clothes made in a good place.

Fine art and pizza delivery: what we do falls neatly in between.

The art that is in the machine-made article, appeals only to the eye; the art in Khadi appeals first to the heart and then to the eye.

It has no equal in any other country, and one finds there rare and precious objects from all parts of the world. I saw objects made of tortoise shell, such as caskets, combs, knife handles, etc. I also discovered rock crystal of great beauty, artistically worked by artisans of surpassing taste. It has been brought from the Maghrib, but some was said to have recently arrived from the Sea of Qulzum [Red Sea] that was even more lovely and transparent than the Maghribi crystal. I saw elephant tusks from Zanzibar. There was also the hide of an ox from Abyssinia that resembles leopard skin and is used to make slippers. From this same country there also came a very large domestic bird…I saw copper vases from Damascus that can hold thirty minas of water each…

We need better things, not more. We should not pollute the world with meaningless, unused things when we can make and support things of rare and precious beauty.

I made two rings for myself and when I was in Los Angeles, I walked into a store called Maxfields and they essentially bought them off my hands. Those were originally made in New York. There wasn't craftsmanship, there was just manufacturing, and I wasn't interested in doing that. My first workshop was in Rome, and that was the start of House of Waris. In a little magical atelier, a goldsmith, his apprentice, his stone setter - and that was where it began.

Organization of khaddar is infinitely better than co-operative societies or any other form of village organization.

This isn't a mass-produced...instrument. Mike Lull Custom Guitars makes each bass right here in the NW. Over 20 years of collaborating, designing, and building basses has gone into my model.

When people wear our Bolivian knits and see who knitted them, they are excited because they know they are supporting this women's cause in Bolivia. And it shows you that we are all connected. It's not a machine making your clothes in a black hole somewhere. There is a human being behind it, and a community there.

In a sense, every tool is a machine--the hammer, the ax, and the chisel. And every machine is a tool. The real distinction is between one man using a tool with his hands and producing an object that shows at every stage the direction of his will and the impression of his personality; and a machine which is producing, without the intervention of a particular man, objects of a uniformity and precision that show no individual variation and have no personal charm. The problem is to decide whether the objects of machine production can possess the essential qualities of art.