Textiles, materials and a focus on artisan communities around the world with Sabrina Kraus Lopez
In this conversation, we explore textiles and materials through a lens that goes far beyond aesthetics, into craft, culture, and community-led design. Sabrina Kraus-Lopez shares how her work has evolved from fashion and textile design into facilitating design processes with Indigenous craft communities around the world, helping makers create work that stays culturally true while also becoming viable in wider markets.
What stands out is Sabrina’s deep respect for the people she collaborates with. She walks us through her four-phase process, cultural immersion, creative confidence, making it happen, and sustaining & sharing, built on trust, patience, and removing hierarchy. We talk about what happens when communities have been pushed to copy mass-produced trends, and how design can become a tool to reconnect craft with storytelling, meaning, and identity.
We also hear powerful real-life examples from her projects, including her residency in Morocco where Berber rug weaving becomes a contemporary language again, carrying hidden messages, personal histories, and cultural memory.
If you’re interested in design as a practice of listening, reciprocity, and long-term relationship-building, this episode will leave you inspired. Let’s get started.
About the designer:
Sabrina Kraus López is a designer specialising in research and development for the textile industry. Following her fashion design BA in Milan, she recently graduated from an MA in Material Futures at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. This multidisciplinary course taught her research-driven design that lead to observing and analysing social, political and economic trends to inform future, sustainable design applications. Fascinated by craft, Sabrina has worked with a remote Peruvian weaving community for her final MA project before undertaking the Common Thread residency for the British Council.
Sabrina Kraus Lopez | LinkedIn
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CREDITS:
Host: Yophi Ignacia
Platform: Design Platform Rotterdam
Productie + montage (intro/outro): Kisha Canwood
Artwork: A.J. Mets
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Do you want to hear more maker stories or find out what Design Platform Rotterdam has to offer? Then take a look at the Design Platform Rotterdam website.
CREDITS:
Host: Yophi Ignacia
Platform: Design Platform Rotterdam
Productie + montage (intro/outro): Kisha Canwood
Artwork: A.J. Mets
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