The Shenouk Story

shenouk is led by me, Sherine Freeth, an ex-career girl who fell into textiles quite by accident.

My childhood was a continual patchwork of trips abroad and my most vivid memories start off with my sisters & I trotting behind our mother through a series of airports. On so many of these family adventures, I’d seek out – or stumble upon – little treasures that I would sneak back. Over the years, these have gone from humble trinkets to more meaningful acquisitions: a Wissa Wassef wall-hanging discovered on the outskirts of Cairo, kilims found in the maze of side streets of Istanbul, hand-painted serving bowls delicately carried back from Siena and more than a few Balinese sculptures blissfully discovered in Ubud. 

In 2014, I flew to Jaipur and what started as another overseas indulgence became an enlightenment. Hand-block printing was still little known back then and I was amazed at the beauty of what was being produced. The items that I began frantically ferrying home were like nothing else at the time and as my happy dabbling went from table linens to bedding to an array of accessories shenouk came to be.

Today, shenouk is an extension of my own home. 

I love that we can bring a piece of a distant, spectacular land into someone’s world.  I love knowing that each painstakingly made item has its own small story to tell because it wasn’t churned out of a factory but created inch by lovely inch, by real honest people.  I love that shenouk can find its way into the lives of families and become a part of their fabric, be it by decorating their kitchen table or feathering their bedtime nest.