About

Leila Atelier is a Cape Town based textile studio, founded on a love of textiles, the joy of making, and a deep rooted belief in the value of living with things made with intention.

Founded in 2018 by Leila Walter, Leila Atelier (originally Crosspolynations, rebranded in 2024) started as a place to share the love of textiles through stories gathered on an extensive research trip through India. Entranced by the medium so rooted in intimate relationship with the body, the earth and culture, Leila took up hand weaving as both a material and philosophical practice. The ethos of the studio has always been to produce textiles as sustainably as possible, centring local, natural materials and artisanal craft, woven in deep relationship.

Inspired by the rich layering of historical textile forms, the simple beauty of natural materials and the wide, open, earthy landscapes of Southern Africa, Leila Atelier draws out essential elements to create timeless pieces, layered in history, labour, ecosystem and time, yet simple, grounded and expansive in form.

In the studio, making itself is treated as a ritual: a physical and philosophical practice that turns raw material into something worth honouring. This sense of ritual, of everyday objects and spaces made sacred through care and attention, runs through everything we make.

We believe in care before all else. Our material selection is centred on environmental consideration. Our production is inherently small batch, centring the people who make them. Our designs are considered for how they will be lived with, and how they will make the people who experience the spaces they inhabit feel.

Our intention is simple: to create beautiful textiles with care, which can be felt as much as seen, and which help you to shift an interior into a home for living, feeling and being fully present.
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