The Ibu x Charlotte Moss clothing and jewelry collection is available at ibumovement.org. (Photo courtesy Charlotte Moss)
For Charlotte Moss, design inspiration can be found just about everywhere she goes and from everyone she meets, whether she’s foraging on a beach, researching in a library, decorating a home or writing a book. Her latest collaboration, Charlotte Moss for Ibu — a collection of clothing and jewelry created in partnership with the nonprofit Ibu Movement — was deeply influenced by the landscape, women and traditional textiles of Morocco; vintage fashion sketches; travel; and her own evolving style.
Ibu Movement was inspired by founder Susan Hull Walker’s obsession with textiles created by women’s cooperatives around the globe, as well as her desire to provide a market for artisans keeping their traditional crafts alive. Moss’ collaboration with Ibu began shortly after she met Walker at a cocktail party.
“She invited me to come to her house the next day, which was where she had everything that she was selling at the time, and we just hit it off. And I just felt there was something really special about Susan, she just has a heart and a soul that’s bigger than the room,” Moss says. “Then one day she called me and asked me if I would do a collection.”
In preparation, Moss and Walker traveled to Morocco to meet with local artisans. There, she became enamored with their elaborate soutache embroidery and incorporated it into a caftan design. It takes the artisans several weeks to craft the embroidery for each caftan.
Moss, who has authored more than a dozen books and designed collections including china, furniture, fabric and trim, and jewelry for companies such as Pickard China, P.E. Guerin and Fabricut, says she was intrigued by Ibu’s mission to provide a market for women artisans from around the world, as well as the opportunity to help contribute to their well-being through the pieces she’s designed.
“Empowerment of women is one of the most important things that all women can do on some level, somewhere, somehow,” Moss says, “and it doesn’t have to be like, ‘Gee I’ve got to go out and slay the dragon and do something marvelous for humanity,’ [it’s] everyday kindnesses for other women.”
