HAPA Laundry Baskets - from £78
We have sold ethically produced laundry baskets for some time now – beautiful, colourful baskets in striped and speckled patterns, woven from sisal fibres. We've now added a collection of sturdy, doum palm laundry baskets with lids to the website.
We’ve had them made in popular sunflower yellow and dusky pink colour block, as well as a natural doum palm. As you can see from the pictures, they are truly magnificent things. Even our style crush Erica Davies thinks so...
We’re also now selling wastepaper bins (which double up as nifty indoor planters) and smaller, lidded natural baskets from the same Kenyan weaving group, also woven in robust doum palm leaf. These smaller baskets are great for fruit and veg, toiletries, make up and jewellery – virtually anything!
Because we simply cannot sell a basket without sharing a little of its history and provenance, here’s a little bit about how these woven beauties came into being. Each basket in this collection has come from the shores of Lake Turkana – also known as The Jade Sea - in North West Kenya. Arid, remote and largely marginalized from the rest of Kenya, this region has poor infrastructure and sees little integration with the wider Kenyan economy. As a result, Turkana people live in relative poverty and its economy has struggled to make progress.
A Turkana weaver works her magic
In 1992, a Catholic women’s charity began a basketry project as a sustainable business model for women to get involved in. Over twenty five years later, 300 women from six Turkana villages weave baskets within this group for a fair and guaranteed wage. These laundry hampers and bins are just some of their stunning handicrafts.
Shop our collection of woven Laundry Baskets here.
