NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, July 9, 2018

By Sudeshna Ghosh

It started with a desire to bridge art and humanity. Emirati art graduate Nadine Malouf always wanted to do something charitable and art-related. Being half-Palestinian, setting up an enterprise that helps women affected by the refugee crisis in Palestine seemed an obvious choice, so she founded 81 Designs together with her mother, Nesrine El-Tibi Malouf, in 2016.

The brand oversees a group of refugee women as they recreate the works of leading Middle Eastern artists in the traditional “tatreez” style of cross-stitching. The results created using this painstaking technique are as innovative as they are beautiful.

Photo courtesy of David Weekly.