Damaja

I’m Stefanija Pejchinovska. I work behind the label Damaja and I am a hand embroidery designer based in Berlin, Germany. I am self taught and I practice hand embroidery for the past two decades.
I grew up in Skopje, the capital of a small country on the Balkan peninsula called N.Macedonia. Actually hand embroidery is a traditional technique in my home country. While growing up, the weekends I was spending mostly in the countryside with my grandma. She was only educated up to 4th grade, but her creativity, wisdom and knowledge could not be graded. She is my favorite person that ever lived in this universe. I have been embroidering since ever, influenced by my grandma. I actually don’t remember the moment she taught me hand embroidery, because she probably never did. It was the most natural way of learning, just looking at her and admiring all the things she made and placed around her home.
I studied architecture and even tho I enjoyed my studies, very soon after graduating I found my way out of the office and computer and back to my roots, by devoting myself completely on creating objects with my hands. I found ultimate pleasure in hand embroidery as a meditative and satisfying craft. I was working on different projects where I could express my creativity, while upcycling fabrics and hand embroidering: pillows, accessories and dolls.
In 2016 I moved to Berlin and at that time I also started embroidering clothing. When I started working with garments, my first works I did on sweatshirts and somehow they immediately got to people’s hearts.
Today my work consists of teaching workshops, upcycling fabrics so I can produce accessories and I also collaborate with local designers and sustainable brands to embroider clothing made in ethical environment. I believe in more mindful approach to life through reuse of textiles, slow fashion, slow creation.