Wild Nettle
The Himalayan Giant Nettle (Girardinia diversifolia), locally known as allo has been used for centuries by communities throughout Nepal. We use Wild Nettle in different weave designs in many of our products because of its natural beauty, excellent durability and long tradition within Nepal.
Wild Nettle in Nepal
Nettle grows widely throughout Nepal, occurring in harvestable flushes usually where running water is found and soil conditions are good. Communities in Nepal have traditionally used nettle particularly for making hard-wearing, long lasting clothes.
The basic fabric, however, is especially important to the Kulung community, living in Sankhuwasabha, East Nepal. This ethnic group uses nettle fabric in important and sacred ceremonies: from a blanket during birth, used to wrap around a newborn to the death of a community member who is also wrapped in the cloth.
The traditional knowledge and practice of harvesting Wild Nettle and processing its fibre has been conserved in only a few remote regions in Nepal. As modernisation progresses, these traditions, once seen as sacred and culturally significant are slowly being lost.
Supporting Tradition in Nepal
We work with, and source directly from, a nettle weaving cooperative owned and run by local women. This gives the local people more power in selling their nettle, and also specifically gives women that power (and money) which is significant in working towards gender equality and women’s empowerment in typically patriarchal communities.
Supporting Local Communities
As well as creating beautiful, unique and sustainable products for you, through creating our range of products using Wild Nettle, Khali Khutta provides an income source based on traditional skills that helps to support the Kulung community to continue their age-old tradition. By integrating the fibre into making modern styled products means helps revalue these skills and encourage the younger generation to hold on to their heritage and traditions. This makes our wild nettle products not just environmentally sustainable, but socially sustainable too.
