Our Team
CAROLINE NIJLAND
Caroline Nijland is the founder of Oromo Atelier. She has been involved in renewable energy in Africa since 1997. In 2020, Caroline Nijland received the Global Woman Award for sustainability 2020. She contributed to the connection of 1 million people to solar electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In her numerous trips to Africa, she felt in love with African textiles and found in them a thread to her creative interest and appreciation of the handcraft, fashion and artistic skills. Oromo Atelier merges Caroline’s interest in sustainability with her love of texture, tradition, craftsmanship and culture.
These yarns are also fair trade and organic and sourced in the most ethical way. They use leftovers from the couture studio of Marijke Bongers. She dyes her beautiful fabrics with local dye plants like onionskins, willow bark and hulls or seeds. Caroline Nijland works together with Marijke on a collection of home decoration, textile art and sustainable clothes with the aim to use the clothes and fabrics as long as possible.
MARIJKE BONGERS
Marijke Bongers collaborates with Oromo Atelier with her artistic vision encompassing Haute Couture skills, sustainable textile, surface design, and eco plant-dyeing. Marijke works conceptually touching on issues of heritage, body positivity, and foraging and reusing. She is a thinker, using thread and texture to express change.