Page 36 - IB August 2021

Business Business

WEAVING A PATH TO SUSTAINABILITY

By Samantha Magick [create] something more formalised.”
Bilum & Bilas now employs four full time weavers and a
As founder and creative director, Jessica Cassell’s ambition jeweller. Cassell says directly employing the women means
for Papua New Guinea’s Bilum & Bilas is for the venture to be they can work together on sampling, product development
well-known internationally as “a brand that has best practice and quality control, and the weavers can be paid for their
around in working with artisans and working with cultural time and work.
creative industries.” “I really wanted to provide employment [that was] stable,
The brand, which sells bilums, jewellery and a small home- secure, that they could really rely on. I saw that that’s what
wares range internationally, aims to “honour and celebrate the women that I was working with really wanted, that stabil-
traditional artisan skills, whilst providing meaningful and fair ity and security.”
employment for the women,” Cassell says. She learnt however, that creating bilums to specific
Cassell first travelled to PNG in 2008 as a designs to meet market demand was difficult. They
volunteer working on HIV awareness. are time consuming to weave, and so an enterprise
She was struck by the iconic tra- based solely on producing and selling these bags
ditional craft of bilum weaving, was not viable. The bilums that Bilum & Bilas
describing them as “works of still sells are sourced directly from communi-
art”. ties, and in-house production moved to Bilum
She initially started buying & Bilas’ jewellery and wall art lines.
bilums for her own extensive “We came up with the idea of, well we
collection, then expanded need to make something that captures the
into on-selling them. skills of bilum, in the same way bilums are
“I knew from being in the beautiful, but in a smaller microform so
rest of the world essentially, that we were able to make it more viable.”
that I’d never come across it The jewellery uses woven elements
[bilums]. So I realised there were alongside metal components, and because
other people like me, and that they are smaller, the artisans Cassell em-
there were women in PNG who ploys are able to produce more, providing
were struggling, who wanted to sell for greater sustainability for the venture.
more because they had really limited “It captures the essence of the bilum, but
market access. one of the weavers can probably make one or
“I guess that’s sort of initially where two pairs of earrings—depending on the design—
the idea came from, and it just in a day, versus a bilum [which] can take some two to
seemed that it just needed a bit of three weeks.”
support to connect the dots, you “The design process is very collaborative,”
know, connecting the supply Cassell says, and the products seek to
and demand.” showcase the weavers’ skills and elevate
In considering how to ex- the pieces.
pand the venture, Cassell “I’ll give some direction on prod-
reflected on development, ucts, and then the women really
‘capacity building’ and explore and try things out… and
economic empowerment there’s a lot of back and forth,
projects she had seen that because it’s really in keeping with
sought to teach women what they can do, their skills, what
new skills. She saw things they’re comfortable with, and trial
differently: “I was think- and error, as opposed to being
ing, well there’s all this really prescriptive with designs
potential for economic and giving design sheets and
opportunities from skills measurements and being very
the women already have, sort of directive.”
instead of having to capacity As with other cases where
build from scratch. We har- people are working towards
ness what women are already contemporary applications of
capable and excelling at, to traditional crafts, there have

36 Islands Business, August 2021