Why Craft and Provenance Matter

There are several good reasons why buying less, but better is a good idea:  our budgets are not limitless, of course; nor is the storage space in our homes.  Ethics, too, are increasingly at the forefront of our minds as we come to realise the relative scarcity and fragility of our natural resources. But there is also the notion that things made thoughtfully, skilfully and with care have qualities that those made dispassionately do not. Crafted products are more than just functional – they say something about our humanity. For each step of a production process there is the story of someone’s dedication and mastery of a skill. There is intimate understanding of materials, tools and processes, and how to create something useful and beautiful with those inconstant elements. Nuance and imperfection are purposefully built in and celebrated, rather than engineered out.  The provenance of a skilfully made product, then, is something we can empathise with and subscribe to – we can surround ourselves with carefully selected pieces that we feel reflect something of who we are, where we have come from and what we are connected to.   

For these reasons we at Awling take great care in selecting and developing relationships with the skilled people who – at each stage of the process from design, to specification, to manufacture – contribute to making our products. 

Please take a look at this short film, which shows some of those skilled hands making Awling belts...

The making of an Awling from Awling England on Vimeo.