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Harriet Sandys first
started her business in London in 1983 selling carpets, kilims and
decorative items from Afghanistan and India.
During the 1980’s she made frequent visits to the bazaars of
northern Pakistan and to the desert villages of Rajasthan buying
artefacts for her business. In 1987 she was commissioned by Eon
Productions Ltd at Pinewood Studios to buy the Afghan costume for
the James Bond film ‘The Living Daylights.’
In the spring of 1989 while visiting Pakistan’s north-west frontier,
Harriet discovered several families of traditional silk weavers
living in an Afghan refugee camp about twenty five miles south of
Peshawar, on an arid tract of land in the shadow of the Kohat
mountains.
The men, all skilled weavers, had escaped the conflict in their
homeland and had taken jobs as road labourers on the Grand Trunk
Road around Lahore, miles away from friends and family. Harriet
obtained funding from the Swedish Government to buy the weavers
handlooms, dyes and silk yarn. The men gave up their work on the
Grand Trunk Road, returned to their homes in the camp and began to
weave silk shawls which were sold through Save The Children USA in
Peshawar and Islamabad. This project has now relocated to Kabul,
Afghanistan.
In 1992 Harriet was asked by Unesco to organise and run a training
programme for three months in ikat silk weaving and natural dyes in
the northern Afghan city of Mazar-I-Sharif. Weavers came from all
over Afghanistan to participate in the training programme held in
the assembly hall of the Sultan Razia Girls school.
Harriet moved to Somerset in 1997 and now gives lectures about the
embroideries and weavings of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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