Founded in 2006, Beklina was the first and original online, “eco boutique.” Zealous trendsetters to the core, the shop has an emotional pull towards influential and arousing collections brought forth by new and established designers that love to play with color, print and fresh contrast. Based in Northern California, their shop is a family business that tightly curates strong thinkers and artists in the fashion world, emphasizing USA made, well crafted heirloom wares with sustainable ideals. Prairie Underground collaborated with Beklina’s owner Angelina to create a textile inspired from their Rug collection for our Fall 2015 Collection. This pattern we then used for our Two Way Shift, Two Ways Dress and Cigarette Pant. We asked Angelina a few questions regarding her vision and inspiration. Enjoy!

Q: Tell us about yourself and how you ended up beginning Beklina
I’m self taught and have always been a “maker” of things. Beklina started as a hobby when my first daughter was 3 years old, she’s now 13. I come across some organic textiles from Europe and became inspired to tract down more and then that lead to selling them online. Beklina and my work is driven by my appreciation for art and textile. I never saw myself in fashion; though I’ve always received compliments for my eclectic styling and dressing; for my family it was an obvious fit.

Q: What inspires you daily?
Images, anything visual, mostly what I come across on the Internet, and nature & old books that are filled with images. I eat images for breakfast 🙂 I love color, rhythm, authentic marks, mood and feeling, and space space space.

Q: Tell us about your Rug Collection?
I was approached to sell the rugs a few years back. At first I thought; I don’t sell rugs, later caving because who can resist all that color and uniqueness. There are no two alike. View our rug collection here. Such eye candy!

Morocco’s Berber craft Boucherouite rugs are something I’ve had in my home years and now carry them in my shop, Beklina. Each rug is one of kind, colorful, full secrets and made to be used and really lived with, and are very giving. I say full of secrets because when you get down and lay on them and study the weave you find all kinds of details, bits of lace, endless varieties of texture, and you start to realize all the history and work that went in the making. I’ve even found old clothing labels woven into the rugs. This is because most of the crafters making the rugs are using recycled materials, found in anyway they can, such as shredded old clothing, repurposed yarn, and raw natural dyed fibers.

I love color, rhythm, authentic marks, mood and feeling, and space space space.

Q: Why did you to reach out to Prairie Underground for a collaboration? How did you go about the style selections with the patterns?
I live in their Capris & Pin Ups leggings. I wanted some print ones and love doing collaborations. I’ve been selling Prairie from the beginning.

Being a print designer, I felt a gravitational pull to their unique, always original, combinations of color, texture and shape placements. -endless objects of inspiration for sure. For the print I designed for Prairie Underground, I started by taking pictures of the rugs and doing sketches while keeping the capri cigarettes leggings in mind (they are my all time favorite pants next to my classic Levis). The print we ended up using is a close up detail of the rug’s weave that I repeated into a rhythm or “flow” that felt more fashionable.