Poko products carry the human stories behind our makers and their process, and are a connection to our travels and adventures abroad.
We partnered with The Atelier to create a special edition Poko towel. We loved the way this towel has been brought to life via a female supply chain, by women in business, and in support of women in business.
The Common Threads
Our design has always been rooted in fair trade practices, community building, and sustainability-first approaches. This refers to things like:
- our artisans determining their own wages and prices
- using biodegradable plastics & compostable packaging
- working with suppliers in a way that promotes a long-term relationship based on capacity building (which ensures our mutual growth).
We travel to the homes and workshops of our artisans and have real, meaningful friendships and relationships with them.Poko goods are the opposite of generic, and come from direct connections abroad. These stories are all being shared within the Poko collections.
We’re Celebrating a New Special Edition Collaboration
This Spring we had the incredible opportunity to partner with The Atelier Collective to design a Poko Diamond Towel in a custom Atelier Pink for their The Atelier: REIMAGINED Experience Box.
The Atelier Collective is an educational platform for the holistic ambitious woman in business. Every event, workshop and offering is created with the themes that drive them to inspire, create, experience, refine, grow & sustain.
The Atelier Pink Diamond Towel
This is a luxury Turkish towel, made with some of the world’s most high-quality Turkish cotton. This towel is a middle-weight, flat weave in a classic diamond pattern bordered with white, which contrasts beautifully with that dusty rose Atelier Pink - one of the first steps in this custom product (more about that below!).
In the traditional Turkish style, this towel is finished with tassels twisted one-by-one by hand. The Turkish artisans are masterful as they twist these tassels, and could do it with their eyes closed. (Read more about caring for your tassels here).
The history of this towel style started with Turkish "hammams", which is what public baths are in Turkey. Turkey’s famous and incredible bath culture dates back centuries, the Turkish artisans who make them weave this rich history into your towel.
Because it’s flat, and not looped in a terry style like most common North American towels, this towel is versatile as a scarf, a wrap, a throw, a tablecloth, a picnic blanket and more! In fact, there are over 10 uses for your Poko towel. It is the ultimate travel companion as it dries quickly and can roll up to be very compact - bring on the adventures!
This towel gives us that sense of rich, ancient self-care rituals as we continue on our own self nurturing today.
The Journey Of Your Poko Towel
We’re very proud to say that this towel comes to us from an almost entirely female supply chain.
The towel’s journey starts with its design by the women of The Atelier and Pokoloko - this began in December of 2020!
Then it travels to rural Turkey where a group of female weavers create the towels. This took place from January - April 2021.
The towel then travels to our warehouse in our little neighbourhood of Hull, Quebec. We were checking its travel status constantly in anticipation.
Here, one of our Poko team members, Tori, rolled and prepared the hundreds of towels with their custom packaging. The design for the packaging was created by our awesome graphic designer, Mel (she is a dream). This took a couple of days to do, definitely fuelled by some good tunes and stories.
We then sent the towels to The Atelier for packaging in The Atelier's Experience Boxes the first week of May.
You are the final, and very important piece of this chain of women working with women in a female supply chain made possible by female entrepreneurship.
Considering where the Women’s Gender Equality Movement has come from, and where it needs to go still, we think this towel’s story represents something pretty remarkable.
“Women represent massively influential and impactful work that has and is changing the world.”
Women Supporting Women (and the World!)
“Women are powerful.It’s my personal goal to challenge myself to work in a way that’s innovative, both in terms of aesthetic design and sustainability, and Pokoloko reflects that.
When the first wave of COVID arrived in Canada, and suddenly our world and our business was frozen, it was never before so obvious to me that in the end, you’re left with the people in your life and the impact you’ve had on them.That experience solidified for me the commitment to always do what you love, to approach your journey with deep humility and passion, and to ensure what you’re doing is a true expression of yourself and how you want your world to be.”
-Jessie Lyon, Pokoloko Co-Founder
We Saved You Some
Even if you aren’t receiving the Experience Box for the Atelier: REIMAGINED event, we saved a few of these custom beauties for you to enjoy in celebration of this partnership!
$1 from every sale of this custom towel is directed to the Homeward Bound program.
Launched by WoodGreen in 2004 and unique in Canada, Homeward Bound is an award-winning comprehensive 4-year program that helps homeless or inadequately housed single mothers achieve lasting economic self-sufficiency. It is a phenomenal and sustainable program with lasting results that works to remove real systemic barriers hindering the success of the women they work with.
We've loved the way this towel has been brought to life via a female supply chain, by women in business, and in support of women in business.
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