A year after the project I initiated started in Kabul, the ‘You & I’ Collection by Nada Debs for FBMI has been shortlisted for the Beazley Designs Of The Year Award.

Dubai, July 2017. During a conversation I had with Maywand Jabarkhyl, Managing Director of FBMI, we decided to launch a new collection that will bring the traditional skills of Afghan carpet weavers with a strong anchor to the 21st century.

Due to the community-oriented values and goals of FBMI, I looked for a designer who would naturally respond to them and the choice of Nada was very obvious.

Her passion for craft and handmade productions associated with her natural empathy for the human kind made me picking up the phone one afternoon.

Nada Debs never worked on carpet before but she immediately decided to join. Less than two weeks after, we were all on our way to Kabul for a 36-hour discovery trip: the production site, the busy roads, the Chicken street with souvenir shops, the food and a tiny bit of thrill and fear because of the obvious threat we were facing in terms of safety.

The FBMI teams warmly welcomed us and Nada spent some time with the lady weavers and learnt more about the production techniques on site. We shared our lunch with the workers and flew back the following day shortly after meeting the wife of the Afghan President, Ms. Roula Ghanim.

Nada dived into the carpet industry, the technique and its production and less than a month after she shared her concept of ‘You & I’. The production had to immediately start to match the unveiling of the collection at Abu Dhabi Art in November 2017, followed a week after by its presentation during Dubai Design Week.

It has been a marvellous adventure and I am grateful to FBMI for their trust in my choice in Nada and of course as much grateful for the work and pressure Nada went through to produce this collection. Let’s hope we will win in November.

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