The Greek Collection: THE GREEK COLLECTION

The GREEK COLLECTION
by
Maria Verivaki

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Search by tags: blue and white, fabric, elytis-runner, blue bag, frappe purse, food, flag, glastres-clutch, geraniums-case, haberdashery, glastres-purse, kafeneio-case, islands, laiki, kafeneio-clutch, mati-purse, mati-clutch, street, props, shop, periptero

The Greek Collection tries to add a Greek twist to your personal and home accessories using discrete and recognisable elements of Greekness that connect you and your daily life to the Greek world.

All items are made by Maria Verivaki (creator of Organically Cooked) in my own home.

My personal goal for The Greek Collection is to create original designs that are inspired by my own environment, which is a naturally rich one, and to present a positive view of a changing Greece.

KAFENEIO - καφενείο - COFFEE HOUSE

GLASTRES - γλάστρες - FLOWERPOTS

... more designs coming soon!

MATI - μάτι - EYE

You're bound to get a few gazes coming your way when you carry this design in public places. The blue 'mati' (eye) has a rather sinister meaning, according to Patricia Storace (Dinner with Persephone):

"The world of magic so often has its roots in the concrete social world; not so much its polar opposite, but its inseparable familiar - that blue glass eye ... reminds me of the Gothic minority in fourth-century Byzantium, a half-forgotten example of the mobile nature of racial prejudice. For in fourth-century Byzantine society, the fair-skinned and the blue-eyed were objects of physical disgust and fear, they were household slaves, street sweepers, cannon fodder as mercenaries in the army, people in daily contact with contamination, with refuse and with blood, an exploited population who it was feared would revolt one day and slaughter their masters and commanders. By the sixth century the situation had changed and the Gothic population had been absorbed, but I wonder if the blue glass eye might not have been at one time a charm against having the bad fortune to be a Goth, a charm to keep the bad luck of the blue eye out of your own face."

My mati design is based on the Greek version, which is quite recognisable from other eye designs used to ward off evil. My bead design significes a shorter form of the 'komboloi' (κομπολόι - worry beads), called the 'begleri' (μπεγλέρι),which is often preferred by the younger generation.

The larger cases are suitable for carrying all your necessities when you go shopping. The smaller ones can be used as a phone, pencil or make-up case.

Available in a blue or off-white background fabric, with a choice of a blue, green or red eye motif. The bead motif will vary, among marine depictions, replica Greek coins, and others.

KAFENEIO - καφενείο - COFFEE HOUSE

A favorite Greek way to pass some leisure time is to while it away at a 'kafeneio' (cafe), usually in the outdoor seating spaces, perhaps sipping Greece's most famous coffee, the 'frappe' (iced frothy coffee) while reading the daily (e-)paper.

At one time, it did seem like the old-fashioned kafeneio with the rickety straw-padded chairs and round metal tables (or rectangular wooden one) was ... dying out, as it became 'replaced' by the modern designs of the cafes, with their plush seating and fancy decor. But that hasn't happened. As Greeks look back to their roots as a way to find solutions to the economic crisis, the small traditional kafeneio, where everyone knows everyone else, is back in vogue, and remains a meet-up point, now for both men and women, as an expression of solidarity towards our fellow citizens.

GLASTRES - γλάστρες - FLOWERPOTS

Potted plant collections in the yard exist all over the world. But the yards with potted plants in Greece seem to be unique. The flowerpots are rarely orderly-looking, but they are lovingly tended. Their blooms look brilliant against the white-washed houses. Terracotta is a particular favorite in Greece these days; it is well priced, and often sold by the Roma community in Crete. Whereas the 'teneke' (τενεκέ - oil can) was once widely recycled for use as a flowerpot, most folk seem to be replacing them as they get rusty with age, with the widely available terracotta which is much easier to maintain. Treasure this image of a Greek holiday wherever you are, any time.

REGISTERED DELIVERY

Please note that I can only do refunds or exchanges with items that have been sent via registered (tracked) delivery. If you would like the option of tracked delivery, please add €3.00 to the final cost of your total order by clicking on the Buy Now button below.

Purchase Registered delivery only ONCE for all orders going to the same address.

ABOUT

I was born in New Zealand to Greek immigrant parents. After finishing university in Wellington, NZ, I did my OE (something Kiwis know well), eventually moving 'back' to Greece, where I have felt I truly belong, and have been here ever since.

My daily life in Greece is surrounded by images that most people take for granted: the colours of the flag that are often immortalised in my environment, the sun, orange orchards and olive trees, an icy cold glass of frappe, among many others. It is these same images of my daily life which have endeared visitors to my country, creating a sense of nostalgia in both the foreign tourist and the diaspora Greek.

These quintessentially Greek images create that feeling of 'nostos' when the Greek-o-phile lives far away from the Greek world. These are the images that inspired me to create The GREEK COLLECTION.

My aim is to bring an intimate element of Greekness into your daily life with personalised accessories, all based on recognisable symbols of Greekness. All items are of my own design, made in my own home, using my own fabric collections.

I hope that The GREEK COLLECTION fills that gap in your life when you are away from the Greek world, and keeps you close to it wherever you are.

Contact me for more information.

Follow The Greek Collection: facebook, twitter, blog

The Greek Collection grows every day, as I continue to be inspired by my surroudings, and I create new items. Check the blog and the store regularly to see what I have added.

- Please note that I can only accept payments made by Paypal. To place an order, simply click on the Buy Now button for the item you want. You may email me for more information before placing an order by using the CONTACT FORM.
- Prices include taxes and postage costs, but they do not include country-imposed taxes and postage fees in the destination country: please check this with your country's postal laws.
- Please note that I can only do refunds or exchanges with items that have been sent via registered (tracked) delivery. If you would like the option of tracked delivery, please add €3.00 to the final cost of your total order by clicking on the Registered delivery option on the left-hand sidebar.

STORE POLICY
GENERAL
GREEK IDENTITY
DESIGNS
FABRICS
PRODUCT TESTING
WORK SPACE
PRICES
DELIVERY
REFUNDS AND EXCHANGES

I genuinely hope that you will enjoy your purchase. If you like it so much, I really hope you will consider buying another item as a present for someone else. And please do share my site to anyone who you think will be interested in The Greek Collection.

THANK YOU!

GENERAL

I've been making fabric art projects since I was a primary school student. I sold my first item (a large hexagon patchworked fabric) when I was about 20 years old at the Victoria Market in Wellington for $NZ25 to a woman who ran a stall there. Within a week, she had sold my 'coverlet' (as she had renamed it) to a customer for $NZ50. What I thought was a reasonable price for something not quite finished and not so useful suddenly became regarded as a work of art, to be sold on from one person to the next for a higher price, like an investment, a bit like house prices in the Western world.

I never thought that I'd be creating fabric art for anyone else except myself, especially in my early Greek days, as I noticed that most people who saw the items I had created showed little interest in them. This has changed considerably in post-crisis Greece, where grassroots arts and crafts movements and online crafts stores have now taken off. As for my friends, they now want to know where I bought my items from. "I didn't buy them, I made them myself," I tell them, and they are surprised. Upcycling, home-made and hand-made have come a long way in Greece in so few years.

Although it takes up a lot of my time, I genuinely enjoy doing this activity, because it feels very creative. Most of my fabric art incolves upcycling. In essence, I get a kick out of making something great out of the little I have. At the same time, it's something that I enjoy immensely, like cooking.

GREEK IDENTITY

Because my designs are based on my environment, they could be said to be Greek designs. They are unique in the sense that I have never before seen fabric art in the designs I produce. It's hard to be unique in the world today, which is geared towards uniformity. My fabric art is a silent kind of protest against this global scourge.

Ancient Greece is a source of inspiration for some of my work, but my designs are grounded more in the modern Greek world. Ancient Greece does appear from time to time in a sense where there is some form of continuity from ancient to modern Greece. Modern Greece has developed along the lines of a Western country with her own particular identity. Some aspects of the ancient Greek world are very much an integral part of the modern Greek world too. But some designs are specifically found in the modern Greek world.

Some of my designs are not necessarily Greek only - they may be considered in the general spectrum of Mediterranean culture... but a person of Greek heritage will most likely recognise them as part of their familiar Greek world. Then there are also some designs which won't be recognisably Greek to people who do not live in Greece, or are not of Greek heritage. These designs may need a bit of explanation for the uninitiated, which can be found in my blog.

In today's world, there is an undeniable interest in Greece. People are curious about Greece as she emerges from a cirippling economic crisis, and these days, "things Greek" are regarded as quite chic, especially when it comes to food and summer themes. So I hope that everyone will be able to find something here that they can identify with their own ideas about what constitutes Greekness.

DESIGN

I am not a designer, nor have I studied art or design. I am simply inspired by what I see around me, and this comes out in my creations, whether it's in fabric art or in my cooking. Nikos Dimos illustrates very well what I am trying to say about where I get my inspiration:

"On the question of their heritage, I would separate the Greeks into three categories - the aware, the semi-aware and the unaware. Those (very few) in the first category have first-hand knowledge. They have felt the awful burden of their heritage. They are aware of their ancestors' inhuman level of perfection in both word and form. And this crushes them... The second category (the majority) do not have direct knowledge. but they've 'heard say'. They are like the sons of the famous philosopher, who are unable to understand his works, but see that those who do know them respect them and prize them. It bothers them, yet the same fame flatters them. They always swell with pride - when talking to others... The third category - the unaware - are chaste and pure (meaning uneducated...) They've heard about the ancient Greeks in myths and legends that they have absorbed like popular folktales. It is these pure types who created the folk tradition and folk art. These alone have lived without the anxiety of their heritage."

My designs come from my environment. I am inspired by my daily images, the same ones that people who visit Greece, whether of Greek heritage or foreigners, often remember most about a Greek holiday. Then I make them, just like I make up a recipe. Because all my items are basically hand-made by myself, they will contain imperfections. This attests to their unique, handmade, one-of-a-kind character.

Above all, I simply enjoy creating things and I hope to continue to create as long as I can. So far, I have been involved in designing unique fabric art for nearly four decades, and at the time of the foundation of The Greek Collection, I have not yet closed five decades of earthly living.

ONE-OF-A-KIND

My products are all unique. This lies in the fact that they are hand-made, and I do not use templates. Generally speaking, I don't use rulers, either. Although I do make similar items, and I make them in batches, no item ever turns out exactly the same as any other item. My fabric art is a bit like my cooking, where the same recipe will not turn out the same as the previous time I made it. Life would be really boring in my home life (and my kitchen) if I did/made the same things (and cooked the same food) all the time. I also don't really like to own things that other people own. Uniformity is not for everyone; I like being different.

FRAYING

Most of my designs are made in a style that includes a certain degree of fraying. They are made to look frayed naturally, and will stay that way when they are washed.

FABRICS

My fabric collection is the product of nearly four decades of saving materials. I have unused fabric from New Zealand, which I collected during my patchwork years. I have fabric that I bought from a wonderful fabric store in Egaleo during my Athens years.

I also have fabric that I saved from my mother's dowry box, after it was opened, which was approximately a year after her death. By the time of her departure from Hania, Crete, when she immigrated to New Zealand (initially to Fielding, and then to Wellington), she had amassed a range of sheets, tablecloths, runners, pillow cases, aprons, tea towels, blankets, rugs, fabric for making other household items, and many other fabrics, all of which she had made herself on a traditional Cretan loom. This was the done practice in her days. But she did not take any of these things with her when she left Greece, nor did she ever show any desire to have them sent to her, even after she married in New Zealand: "We have no need of such things here," she wrote to her mother, when my grandmother asked her if she wanted them sent over. So they stayed in my grandmother's house in the dowry box, keeping company with a few mothballs.

After storing them in my house for nearly two decades, I took them out and examined these items. The fabric looked rather coarse. All the fabric was off-white in colour. It didn't really look appealing... but the fabric was very strong, like calico. I could see the bits of cotton husk spun in it, as if it were a natural part of the spun thread. I decided that something had to be done with all this fabric. I could simply no longer afford to have it take up so much precious space. I then had the idea to upcycle them and make new items with them, things that were not needed in my mother's time. By the time I got hold of the fabrics, some had become significantly age-stained. I decided to dye these blue to give them a new lease of life. This is where I got the idea to base my designs on a mainly blue or white fabric. All of my products are based on the galanolefko (γαλανόλευκο), which is the Greek phrase we use to signify the Greek flag - galano = light blue, lefko = white. And that's how The Greek Collection was born.

OTHER MATERIALS

To supplement my fabric collection, I use my town's Saturday morning 'laiki' (λαϊκή), the daily street market that exists in every urban area of Greece, where, apart from fresh food products, you can buy clothing, fabric and household items very cheaply. From time to time, I also buy various low-cost items from Amazon and eBay, but I have come to the conclusion that, apart from highly specialised items (eg a rotary fabric cutter), if I am patient enough, I will find everything being sold in my town, either at a regular store, or at the laiki, and for similar prices to online stores. I like the idea of supporting local SMEs (small-medium enterprises) when they can provide similar prices to big businesses. I basically shop around for good prices.

PRODUCT TESTING

Before starting The Greek Collection, I made 20 items and sent mystery parcels to some friends, who in turn filled out a questionnaire that I sent them to give me feedback on the design and durability of the item, which I've used to improve both my sewing techniques and my designs. I also use my products myself on a daily basis. I've washed them and watched them age.

CARE AND WASHABILITY

All my fabric products can be washed. The wadding in some products will undergo some stress in the washing machine. When I wash these items in a washing machine, I use a 15-minute cycle up to 30 degrees Celsius. While drying, any wadding that an item contains may need to be rearranged (but not necessarily). With a light iron pressing, it should come back to its rightful position. Any fraying in the designs will also stay frayed to the degree that they were when you originally purchased them. When washing by hand, I recommended soaking the item, and not rubbing the affected area to avoid any unnecessary friction on the affected area, which may damage the frayed part of the design.

WORK SPACE

My work space is in the living room of our family home. Each member of my family has a bit of space in that room where they can work independently. This is very important because in the winter, our home, like many Greek homes nowadays, is heated only in one space, which is usually the largest room of the house. We don't smoke but we have a wood fire keeping us warm in the winter, which doesn't create any odor, but every now and then, when we add wood to the fire, a willow of smoke will come out of the heater. We have a dog and a cat, but they are definitely outdoor pets. I don't cook or handle food in my work space, but the adjacent room to the living room is the kitchen, and everyone in the living room knows what I am cooking, as the aroma wafts into the other spaces of the house.

(This information has been included, in order to conform with current marketing trends, the kind that use phrases like 'smoke-free', 'pet-free', 'gluten-free', 'vegan', etc. The world is a better place to live in nowadays, but it's also a more complicated world.)

PRICES

I have based my prices on the suggested prices my friends recommended for similar items during the product testing period (see above). As stated above, my items contain imperfections, because they are all hand-made without using measuring aids. Apart from using a sewing machine to do up seams, I cut out all fabrics by hand, and decorations are placed manually, with some finishing touches also being sewn by hand. I like to think that my charges are similar to what I would find if I bought my item in a regular store in Hania, which sells unique hand-made upcycled items that are not made for luxury use, or for specialised clients. Prices include taxes and postage costs. They do not include country-imposed taxes and postage fees in the destination country.

POSTAGE AND PACKAGING

The stated price of each item includes the basic postage and packaging costs, which roughly comes to €2 per small item, and €4 per large item. If you prefer to buy the item and pick it up directly from me when you are in Hania, I will deduct these costs from the stated price. The cost of registered (tracked) delivery totals an extra €3.00, which you can add to your Paypal payment when you check out of my store. Please note that I can only do refunds or exchanges with items that have been sent via registered (tracked) delivery.

PAYMENT

At this time, I can only accept Paypal. Paypal is a transparent system, and it is a really big help for the owner-operator of a small business unit.

TAXES

Taxes are included in the price stated for each item. You can find out how internet sales are (at present) governed by the Greek state in this link. (The document is in Greek; laws change often at the moment in Greece).

PROFITS

In our house, we have a rule: no one may spend money on something that will create a heavy expense for other members of the family, and all money earned is spent in a way that will benefit everyone in the family. So if someone wants to eat ice cream, for example, they must ensure that everyone in the family will have the opportunity to eat some ice cream. Towards this end, any profits from The Greek Collection will go towards the cost of new technology for the use of all my family members (eg tablets, computers, mp3s, etc). Even a simple camera is a powerful technological tool, which allows us to keep in communcate about our daily life to the whole world. Connected to a computer with internet, a camera can make you feel you've conquered the world.

Although I didn't start The Greek Collection due to the Greek economic crisis, this venture might in fact help alleviate my financial situation in the current climate.

DELIVERY

During the period when I was testing my products on my friends, I also tested the Greek post office service. I used plain mail delivery service, sending parcels both in Greece and abroad, on the same day. The first parcels to arrive went to Austrian and German addresses. The Greek ones arrived after the Northern European ones, just ahead of those that arrived in Massachusetts. The last to arrive were addressed to the East coast of the US. They arrived between 3 and 4 weeks after I sent them out. My friend who received the parcel last of all told me that mail to her US home is always slow to arrive.

All the parcels were sent without registered delivery, but the time varied between 6 and 20 days (weekends are included in this calculation). The ones sent to the United States and New Zealand took the longest time to arrive. To test the registered (tracked) delivery service, I sent out only one parcel by registered mail, to a friend based in Greece. That one took one day longer to arrive than the time period guaranteed by the Greek post office for such kinds of delivery.

So I can come to the conclusion that the Greek post offices do actually send out mail on time. But what happens after the arrival of a parcel at the post office delivery point and its arrival at the stated destination address on the letter/parcel all depends on the local post office of your region. Thus, it is a global problem, and not limited to Greece alone.

Please note that I take the parcels to the Greek post office within three working days once payment has been cleared by Paypal (it's not easy to go to the post office every day). All parcels will be sent via the Greek postal service. If you want to have the opportunity to exchange your item or get a refund, please add €3.00 for registered (tracked) delivery (see left-hand side bar).

REFUNDS AND EXCHANGES

If for any reason you believe that you did not get what you expected, as long as you have paid for registered (tracked) delivery, I will allow you to exchange the item. Return postage and packaging are at your own expense.

As long as you have paid for registered (tracked) delivery, you may also ask for a refund (which will go back into your Paypal account).

You can add the registered delivery option by clicking on the Paypal button below. Purchase Registered delivery only ONCE for all orders going to the same address.