By All Means, With Peace

Handmade crafts and labour intensive artisanal skills are quickly becoming lost arts. This intense handiwork requires great patience and often long repetitive hours. Dana Arbib and Farah Malik of the design collective, A Peace Treaty, seek out forlorn regions to work with village artisans for their ancient amulet and talisman inspired jewellery. For the debut collection, aptly titled, Sunari (“female goldsmith” in the Pashto language), Arbib and Malik draw inspiration from the Kuchi nomadic tribes of Afghanistan and Turkomans of Central Asia. The results, handmade by Kurdish artisans, are incredible, evocative of worn relics from an ancient empire.

There has been a rise in eco-conscious fashion with little attention given to human rights in fashion production. Pulling from their former backgrounds in design and social change and human rights, respectively, Arbib and Malik created APT with the idea to raise awareness and educate consumers about the countries and regions where the pieces are produced. In an age where the designer name overshadows the person that actually constructs the garment or piece, APT gives a voice and a possibility of sustainability to these individuals and crafts.  

In addition to jewellery, APT has a range of silk, cashmere and cotton scarves and neckwear, filling a gap in the mid-range market. Tapping the fertile history of hand loomed textiles in Maliks’ native Pakistan, APT has set up projects in eight different towns and villages, reviving family businesses nearly destroyed by political conflict and a shift to factory manufacturing.

Inspired and absolutely inspiring, A Peace Treaty pioneers a new way of designing and creating social change.

www.apeacetreaty.com

by Anush Mirbegian