Artisans
THE ARTISANS
The Miao women who embroider for us live in villages in the countryside and travel in by bus once of twice a month to bring their finished embroideries to sell to us. Most of our seamstresses live in our small city and, even though they are more assimilated to the Chinese culture, prefer to communicate with their Miao language. Their love of the Miao culture and language is one both the seamstresses and the village embroidery ladies all have in common.
We invite you to watch the interviews with Sharon, the Miao owner of Hunan Ethnic Crafts, and Ying Tao, a village embroidery lady who helped develop the beautiful embroidered products we feature on this website.
Sharon | Manager
Sharon has been making our Shenaini products for more than 17 years. She started out working in her home, when her son was still a baby, to sew products for Mr. Liu, the local man with whom we partnered to develop our hand embroidered products. When we bought our house in which we started a small workshop, Sharon came on board as both a seamstress and the supervisor for our small group of Miao ladies.
In 2020, Sharon became the owner of Hunan Ethnic Crafts when the founders, Paul and Dorothy Lacy, returned to America to further develop Shenaini for marketing Sharon's products in America. But Sharon knows everything about the running of this company, from the sewing process to the ordering and shipping. Sharon, a Miao woman from a small village, has also learned English and the computer and has become one the best managers we have had in the 15 years we have been in business. Now, as the business owner, she has grown into quite an entrepreneur!
WATCH HER STORY
Ying-tao | Embroidery lady
We met Ying Tao through our business partners, Mr. and Mrs. Liu, in 2003. She and a few other Miao ladies in her village were embroidering fabric for our Shenaini products. As we developed more sophisticated handbags, Ying Tao skillfully took on the task of designing embroidery patterns using the traditional Miao embroidery styles.
Ying Tao is the women’s leader in her village, and she began to train many other women to do the high-quality embroidery for us. Now, when she visits our workshop to bring her embroidered cloth to us, at least 5 or 6 older Miao women from her village accompany her to bring in their handiwork.
WATCH HER STORY
Embroidery Ladies
14 Coburn Ln., Topsham, ME 04086-1421 USA | info@shenaini.com
+207-766-4358 (Eastern Time Zone)
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