Art must begin with an artist. At Badan Collective, our Creative Director is Bayan Fares who designs every piece by hand from concept to sketches to reality. She has been practicing tatreez since 2005 and founded Badan Collective in 2022.

We are a creative design house and an educational space for tatreez. Bayan is our Tatreez Instructor and has taught over 3,000 students through our tatreez workshops. She is also a writer, published poet, and Licensed Social Worker with a focus on trauma-informed care. With all these experiences combined, Bayan is able to use her knowledge to create traditional Palestinian garments with intentionality.

She takes inspiration from tatreez garments dated pre-1948, Palestinian landscapes, Palestinian folk stories and creates designs for Badan's online shop. We revive these historical pieces as everyday wearable art to help you better embody tatreez.

Hand-embroidery is the richest and most intentional part of this process. It is also the longest, taking anywhere from one to six months. This timeframe not only allows us to directly connect with our embroiderers to discuss adjustments, color changes, and deadlines, but also to get to know them on a deeper level.

Over the length of one stitched garment, we receive news from them on weddings, graduations, and family plans as well as news on road closures, shipping restrictions, bombardments, and bank closures from the Israeli government. Because of this, our women embroiderers have become an extension of our community, and alongside creating tatreez, we are reviving connections with them that exile has cut.

We employ about 5-12 women in the West Bank, Palestine to hand-embroider our pieces. One of whom is Um Bader (hands photographed). She stitches our smaller accessories like bag straps and shawls in her spare time between work, cooking, and family obligations. Um Taysir is another one of our embroiderers who stitches larger collections. She is trained in the tatreez, habke (binding interlace stitch), and manajil (joining stitch) techniques. She also loves beadwork and removing waste canvas.

Once a piece is fully hand-embroidered, it moves onto the round of final touches. This includes tasks such as removing waste canvas (a process known as tanseel in Arabic), assembling fabric pieces, and finishing seams or hems. Each of these tasks is done by a different person on our team before it is then packed and shipped to us.

We receive all items, inspect for damage, trim any loose threading, and add our Badan fabric tag. Our small-batched collections are then shared with you, where every purchase supports both our local small business and our team in occupied Palestine.