Craft Is Everywhere In Fashion Right Now, But At This Studio, It’s A Way Of Life.

I’m a magpie. Challenge me to weave through a souk without pawing at mismatched crockery and curly-toed shoes I’ll, of course, never wear back home, and I’ll fail miserably. You’d have to blinker me like a racehorse, and, believe me, my boyfriend has tried.

On my first ‘adult’ holiday, I returned from Tunisia with swollen socks cocooning the individual dishes that collectively made up a supposedly hand-painted chip-and-dip shaped like a Hamsa hand. It was a cringingly clichéd memento, a whisker away from the billowy harem pants my gap-year friends would soon be bringing back from India and Bali. I like to think I’ve refined my taste since then, but one thing has remained constant: travelling abroad means I’ll always be on the lookout for something to bring home. Something that, when I’m fumbling my way to the coffee machine in the early morning, my bleary eyes can land on — a cup, a bowl, a too-small pinch pot — that reminds me my life doesn’t revolve entirely around work. That there is an expansive world beyond my tiny London flat.

This morning, as I reached for a mug, my hands passed over paint-splattered cups from Tamraght, Morocco; one with a base shaped like a dreidel, making it entirely useless for holding liquid. More practical is the hand-blown glass coffee cup I picked up on a recent trip to Tanzania.

Tucked behind the Garden Café at Gran Meliá Arusha, at the foothills of Mount Meru, is Sanaa, a social enterprise studio. Here, molten glass glows in open furnaces, fibres are pulled tight between practised hands, and metal is hammered into objects that carry the marks of how they were made. Tiny glass beads — melted down from bottles that, not so long ago, were discarded by nearby hotels — are threaded into jewellery, placemats and intricate wall hangings like the one above the bed in my room.

The studio was founded as a space for artists with disabilities, with the aim of creating long-term, meaningful employment through craft. Today, it functions as both a workshop and a community: somewhere skills are shared and, over time, turned into livelihoods.

You won’t find slogan tees here — though if that’s your thing, might I suggest the local store Max, where I had to re-buy my wardrobe after losing my luggage. Instead, Sanaa’s work is defined by what it describes as “beautiful imperfection”: the subtle irregularities that come from making something by hand, rather than by machine. It’s a slower way of working, but really, what is the rush?

Over the past decade, craft has gained new visibility in fashion. At houses like Chanel, the annual Métiers d’art collections have become a way of foregrounding artisanal skill. First introduced in 2002, the initiative was designed to preserve specialist workshops, from embroidery to featherwork, that require years, sometimes decades, to master.

Other luxury houses have increasingly turned towards handicrafts, like weaving, embroidery and leathercraft, not only as a design choice, but as a way of communicating value. Under Jonathan Anderson, Loewe placed craftsmanship at the centre of its identity, from its Craft Prize — an annual international award to celebrate innovation in modern, handmade craftsmanship — to its collections centred around artisanal techniques. Elsewhere, brands like Dior have spotlighted embroidery ateliers across India, while Chloé has leaned into handwork and traceability as part of its sustainability commitments.

At the same time, this renewed interest in craft reflects something broader. Insights from Etsy suggest that many shoppers are moving away from digital saturation and looking instead for objects that feel personal. At a moment when almost anything can be bought with a tap, heritage techniques signal something different: time, skill and human touch. It’s that last quality that, in an increasingly digitised and accelerated world, begins to feel like a luxury in itself.

There is, clearly, a growing appetite for authenticity. But within fashion, authenticity can be difficult to locate. Craft is often romanticised — as things that harken to the past so often are — yet the realities behind it are not always visible. The people who carry these skills can remain distant from the finished product.

Long before it appeared on runways or in marketing campaigns, craft existed as a way of working tied to place, community, and knowledge passed between people. At Sanaa, artists move between disciplines — glassblowing, weaving, metalwork — developing skills gradually and often collaboratively. The workshop is open, and the process is visible. Visitors can see how objects are made and who is making them, making the connection between product and person harder to ignore.

This shift is not exclusive to fashion. People are looking for things that feel grounded; objects that carry some trace of how and where they were made. It’s what has always drawn me to holiday keepsakes. As our lives become increasingly digital, it makes sense that we search for something more tangible, something that exists beyond aesthetics.

Last year, in its Travel Trends Report, Expedia put a name to this instinct: Goods Getaways, suggesting we are entering a “souven-era”. It may be a playful piece of marketing, but I think it truly speaks to our human craving for connection and for something to transcend our screens. Something we can touch that becomes almost talismanic, transporting us to a place and time — an idea that doomscrolling promises but rarely delivers.

Of course, as craft becomes more visible, it also becomes easier to aestheticise. Sanaa sits slightly outside of that cycle. It doesn’t need to reinterpret craft or position it as something newly discovered. What it offers instead is a clearer line of sight between material, maker and meaning.

I think that is what feels most relevant right now. Not just the idea of authenticity, but the ability to recognise where it already lives.