Karien Belle

Karien Belle is a South African designer, living between Cape Town, Paris and Delhi. Karien Belle scarves are a beautiful combination of instinctual design and careful artistry, a spontaneous sketch transformed into these lovely eye-catching poetry scarves. Made with the finest linen's and Cotton’s using acid free dye, each piece carefully hand embroidered in a Fair Trade unit employing widows. Her factory there has a proud tradition of employing widows, many illiterate, who are otherwise stigmatized in that culture and unable to work. Karien spends several months a year in Delhi working with the ladies. She also provides health care and education to them and their children. The brand has worked with a variety of poetry organizations in addition to collaborating with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Desmond Tutu Foundation to honour some of those great leaders’ quotes on scarves. She produces very limited runs each year to honour the heart of the brand which is that each piece is utterly unique, made in an ethical environment and with love.