Fabriq means ‘create’ in Arabic. Fabriq Textile Studio is the first textile pattern design studio in Lebanon. In this article, the founder Stephanie Nehme helps us understand better the workings of textile design, tells us why she decided to start Fabriq, takes us through her creative process as a textile designer, shares with us her online teaching experience on Skillshare, and tells us more about her future plans.
So to begin, I ask what textile pattern design means. “Textile pattern design is creating designs that repeat in a pattern, to be printed or woven or knitted onto textiles used for the home or clothing markets. So far, I have been focusing on printing.” Stephanie clarifies: “Today pattern design is so hot worldwide and many designers are trying their hands at it. But making a pattern is more than just lining motifs in repeat, there are guidelines to making patterns that flow, read easily on the eyes, are rich in composition, and fit the requirements of various markets. In that sense, Fabriq is a one-stop for textile pattern design, backed with the know-how to create professional winning patterns.” Stephanie continues.
Since 2012, Stephanie has been toying with the idea of textile pattern design. Throughout her career, she had practiced storytelling through many mediums such as marketing, fashion design, and writing. “It was when I was writing a fiction piece that I suddenly felt the urge to explore storytelling visually. As a kid, I had a passion for textiles and patterns. I think there is something very grounding and primal in textiles and I feel that patterns offer a safe and meditative feeling due to their predictable and repetitive nature. So I decided to keep my eye out on textile pattern design because it honours all my earliest passions – storytelling on textiles through patterns. So after 2012, whenever I could find an online resource on textile design I’d read up on it but little was offered online and learning from books was limited back then. By 2016 the textile design craze had started. In that 4-year window, online resources on textile pattern design were all over the Internet as websites like Pinterest and Skillshare started growing and textile designers openly shared their know-how on blogs and websites. So in 2016, I dedicated time to studying textile pattern design online with textile studios offering their knowledge through courses on their websites and through professional textile designers as well. In 2017, I launched Fabriq Textile Studio. Just 10 days after launching, I was contacted by one of the biggest fabric stores in the country, Skaff, and so was the Min Lebnen fabric collection, the first textile collection designed in Lebanon, to be sold on the Lebanese fabric market. And so the story began.”
Stephanie is a storyteller at heart. Stories she wants to tell are stories that awaken, ignite and celebrate one’s truth. She takes inspiration from her own story – that of a kid that could not draw and resisted it for years to someone who launched a studio based on drawing, painting, and illustrating.
When I ask Stephanie to elaborate on her creative process, she says: “Recently I’m wanting to honour joy in my process, creating not from a place of fear or judgement, and anchoring the work in the stories that I want to tell. Over the past two years, I’ve been present in my creative practice offline. I didn’t want to post online just to please the algorithm Gods but wanted to share work that mattered. And that type of work requires an organic process that needs time, patience and silence. I was asking for a different calibre of work to fall in my lap. One that I don’t chase but that I attract, and from there I am the vessel for that work to come out into the world, much like what happened with the Tfadalo collection, and onwards we go hopefully.
Starting out, I explored painting with watercolour and gouache, then I digitize work in the Adobe apps. And because I needed to do many takes while drawing, drawing digitally, erasing with a click and repeating was freeing. Also, the limitless options for creating digitally enticed me to invest in an iPad Pro in 2019. Now all my work starts off with the Procreate application, a digital illustration app. Having said that, spending time with my gouache and an old brush sounds like a good date. Discovering your style takes time; it comes with practice, and I’m still working on it.
I know a design is done when every motif in the design has answered the “Why?” of the composition and when I am pleased with the look, feel and colour palette of the final design. It just sits right with you, you know when you know.”
Wanting to learn more about an online course Stephanie had offered for creatives on Skillshare titled “Silence and Curiosity: A Guide to Self-Reflection and Self-Discovery” that have 2566 enrolled students so far, I ask her about her motivation to create the course, how it feels to be a teacher to that many students, and her overall experience on the platform.
“I’ve been a student on Skillshare since 2016,” Stephanie explains. “In 2019 I started contemplating teaching a class and giving back to this nurturing community of creatives. While I was writing the script in 2020, a MindValley course found its way to me. It was called: Speak & Inspire by speaker Lisa Nichols. And that course helped me realize that it was the right time for that class to be shared and it helped me fine-tune the class. I crafted the class around silence and curiosity, two themes that I framed the class around. At the beginning of my discovery journey, I cherished periods of self-reflection, reflecting on where I was and where I wanted to go while also making time to discover my curiosities. During that period, I watched friends make career choices based on their fears and not hopes and noticed the regret arriving shortly after. So I cherished that road less travelled and I wanted to share with others how I navigated it; and maybe it would be a roadmap for them if they ever choose to take on their journey to becoming. On a personal level, I already stated that I went from being a person that could not draw and therefore resisted any design career for years, because for some reason I believed that drawing was the gateway to the arts and design fields, to finally exploring curiosity after curiosity; one usually leads to the next and launching Fabriq that is based on drawing. And in tandem, I’d always hear countless stories of how adults have refused a path in the arts because they could not draw in school or hearing still now teenagers say the same. So I just wanted to send a message to both age groups to trust and joyfully explore their curiosities to invite the change they desire.
Teaching so many students is such an honour. When I first put the course out I didn’t know it would make such an impact. Of the students who left reviews, over 60% said the class exceeded their expectations. And I am glad that my story is inspiring others to discover and explore the curiosities that they’ve been putting on hold.
Producing the class was stressful, it was my first time in front of the camera sharing a personal journey and mainly it was shot in the aftermath of Aug 4 in late August/early September if I recall correctly. On the shooting day, I was feeling guilty about getting back to work when the country was in grave shock and mourning. I could hear that in my voice and mannerisms. But also being productive and bouncing back quickly also felt like an act of protest in its own right.
I wrote the script, filmed it with the help of my friend and then learned to edit and edited it myself. The impact was more than I expected, class reviews have exceeded expectations and people’s comments about how the class impacted them to take action in their own lives make all the hard work put into it worth it.
This year I have been preparing for a second class. But last month I lost over 30 pages of research when my laptop crashed. Maybe I’ll start over again.”
Moving forward, Stephanie wants to primarily honour and protect the joy in the creative process and even across all aspects of doing business. Creating from a place of no fear and judgment of both process and outcome. “I also wish to make space for daily art practice to escalate my growth. As for future plans, I’ve been meaning to explore and create textile art for a few years now. I took a stitching course a few years back so I’d like to revisit that again as well as dive deeper into printing with natural dyes. And growing the business sustainably. This is the first year that I produce a product; I’ve been resisting it since the start. But I found a way to produce with intention and the impact of the Tfadalo collection speaks for itself, now in its second print run and going on to its third. Moving forward, I’d like to produce textile pieces with no clear labels, pieces that people can use from wearables to wall art and even cut them up and stitch them back and reimagine them any way they want, which ties back to the name of the studio… Fabriq.”
By: Jana Al Obeidyine, a dancer, writer and independent publisher based in Beirut- Lebanon.
Copyright Photos: Jana Al Obeidyine