Teixidors

AMANVIDA / Teixidors / Socially responsible woven fabrics. Unique, ecological and handmade.

Teixidors is a Spanish weaving mill with a special purpose

Teixidors is a Spanish weaving mill that produces plaids, bedspreads, pillow covers ... located near Barcelona. For more than twenty years they have fought for the integration and the financial independence of people with a disability.

In 1983 Joan Ruíz and Martha Ribas founded Teixidors. Their purpose was to help people. Or more specifically to help those who otherwise would not find their place in society. The weaving mill Teixidors strives to offer these people a place.

Why a weaving mill as a sheltered workplace?

Through her work in psychiatry as a social worker, Martha discovered that weaving was used as therapy for those with a social or mental disability in Scandinavia. The manual work, the focus on miniscule details, the repetition of the same activity and a place to belong and to feel useful, have shown to have an incredible therapeutic effect.

This is reaffirmed at Teixidors every day:

“I know that it would be very difficult for me to work somewhere else. I feel calm here and like I am part of the group”, says Alfonso, who has been working for more than 30 years at Teixidors.

Everyone is trained with time and attention to become a weaver

Since their founding, Teixidors has not been idly sitting by on the side lines. Over the years they have grown tremendously. This weaving mill started with 5 homemade looms. Today, they count 22 homemade looms in their workshop.

The waiting list for interested employees gets a little longer every year as well, because Teixidors does not simply hire people; they invest in their employees. To train an employee it takes, on average, 3 years. Everyone in the workshop – with exception of Jaume and his assistant (the 2 people who train the employees) and the quality inspector – has a mental disability. For them weaving remains a heavy and monotonous task. It requires enormous concentration as well. Nonetheless, each weaver is proud of their work. And rightly so.

Weaving is an exceptionally hard craft to master. The work must be very controlled to ensure that the woven fabrics are similar across the entire piece. Additionally, the larger the loom, the harder and heavier it is to work with it. The largest loom at Teixidors is 3 meters wide and is used to produce the Thor bedspread and the Thor carpet. You need constant power and concentration to work with this loom. Each weaver is taught every step of the weaving process, to develop more skills and to have variation when desired.

The woven fabrics of Teixidors are unique and handmade

When buying Teixidors woven fabrics, you support the social work of the weaving mill. Moreover, you buy a truly unique piece of textile each time; each woven piece is made by hand from beginning till end and is per definition the only copy in the world.