Meet Roberta, Founder of Table Love, Stockholm

"On the devastating morning of the 24th of February, we woke up to hear our seamstress in Ukraine had woken up in the night to Bomb alarms sounding from the first Russian Air Attacks. Our women had to learn fast how to use a gun instead of their sewing machines. Our Producer Natala wrote, "Today I held a gun for the first time." 

It was an impossible situation. A war? in Europe. An attack on a nation just like ours. On a free democratic nation like mine? On WOMEN like me? On families like mine? Men, like my brother and my husband, saying goodbye to their families on a morning like today to go to war? I think about this every day. It was heartbreaking, and as marshal law came into effect, all work ceased & we reluctantly stopped production in Kyiv.

Our seamstresses did not want to leave. They wanted to stay and fight and support their country. The Ukrainian people have the most incredible morale. I offered to drive and pick them up. I had made inquiries, and we knew we could help them with accommodation and schools somewhere safe, but the answer was still firmly no. It was still NO.

And then, in the summer months, it became possible for our seamstress to start working again…. and international couriers started operating via Poland. And it was never a question for us to support Natala, Elena, Oksana, Viktoria and Yulva. Producing in a war zone has pretty significant risks for a very small business. Still, the rewards of knowing that our women are able to work and maintain some "normality" and to support them is just how we want to operate.

We don't produce in a factory. It's an artisan collective of women seamstresses who make each piece individually. That is how we achieve such beautiful and high quality.

Since the war broke out, we can't source every colour of linen, we have to work with the materials that we can get inside Ukraine, so we create collections around what is available, and this means we use every inch of available linen. It means that we get very creative & unexpected colour combinations evolve. 

It is empowering to know that because of Table Love we create work for a group of women who, beyond an income, need to feel normal, to have a sense of everyday, and to be able to provide during these unthinkable hard times. The gratitude of our seamstress resonates deeply.