CONNECTION AND CRAFT: PAULINA CZAJOR
“I stepped into studying fashion with this big hope of what the industry is, how beautiful and interconnected it can be, and how it can weave together all my passions”
With a lifelong devotion to following her curiosity and remaining true to her values, Paulina Czajor has immersed herself in the world she dreamed of in her youth: one where creativity, connection, and respect for the earth are interwoven. Her journey embraces fashion design, historic craft, sustainability, research, and storytelling, always rooted in community and the human experience. In 2025, she participated in the Xtant Leadership Programme, on a scholarship sponsored by De La Espada, to continue building the future she dreams of. Here, she discusses her experience with the programme, the ethics of collaboration, and why she feels optimistic about a sustainable future for fashion.
“Xtant has such an amazing energy. Once you enter the room, it's filled with hope and passion, all these realised and unrealised dreams and beautiful, beautiful things,” shares Paulina.
A uniquely warm and purposeful event in Palma de Mallorca, the Xtant festival, now entering its 7th year, is an annual gathering of global craftspeople that celebrates heritage textile craft, fosters connection, and embraces regeneration. In addition to its exhibition, marketplace, and workshops, Xtant offers a leadership programme to provide those ready to lead with the tools to drive meaningful change. Their guidance embraces both craft traditions and technology, and invites a reimagining of the future grounded in their core pillars: consciousness, beauty, craftsmanship, time, and community.
Paulina Czajor was a natural fit for the programme; she works closely with artisans across the world, championing mindful creative practices with a rich cultural history. She is a regular contributor to the Polish Cultural Institute of London's online platform Polish Fashion Stories, covering a range of disciplines from clothing and textiles to glassmaking, basketry, and installation art. She also creates evocative short films produced by the institute such as ‘Weavers of Janów’, which she co-directed, capturing the complex double warp weaving tradition in Poland. At the International Fashion Research Library in Oslo, she is researcher-in-residence for the ‘Mapping Norwegian and Sámi Fashion Cultures’ programme, where she is examining how fashion can integrate culture and resist global overproduction.
Like Paulina, all participants of the Xtant Leadership Programme already exhibit the passion and values to drive positive change; the programme deepens their knowledge and fosters an open mindset to encourage problem solving from a fresh perspective. A place for true innovation.
“It was special that Kavita [Parmar, founder of Xtant] designed the programme in a way that showed the interconnectedness of different industries; how they can learn from each other. It's not just fashion, but it can be regenerative farming or sustainable hospitality,” says Paulina.
Insights came from visits across Mallorca, including to Casa Esment, a foundation supporting those with intellectual disabilities and diverse needs as well as their families. Offering social inclusion and employment opportunities across their regenerative farm, winery, restaurant, and printing press, Casa Esment models support from a place of respect and dignity.
“We met with the founders of [Casa Esment], and we spoke about the ethics of collaboration and how to come up with new things; the mindset of working with people: designing with, not designing for them,” explains Paulina.
The visit provided practicable guidance for Paulina to further develop the respectful way she has been approaching collaborations since her days at university.
Working directly with craftspeople was the antidote to Paulina’s disillusionment with mainstream fashion during her bachelor’s degree at London's Kingston University. Her artisan visits for Polish Fashion Stories continued to fuel her, “fill[ing] me with so much positivity, hope, respect [and] humility,” she says. These experiences led her to pursue a master’s degree in sustainable fashion at her alma mater, in an intensive programme developed by the inspiring Dr. Sass Brown, which culminated in a thesis project that honours the artisans not only as makers but as creative forces in their own right.
“My thesis questioned the art–craft discourse and the gendered origins of the historical devaluation of craft. I wanted to look at craft in its pure simplicity as something worthy of reflection and attention,” shares Paulina. “The intention was to step away from functionality and approach craft as a contemplative, narrative piece rather than a wearable product.”
The project, entitled IZBA, unites crafts from Cyprus and Poland in a single artefact. Acting as a curator, Paulina embraced the creativity and skill of her artisan partners, encouraging them to craft a piece in a technique of their choice and, through their design, express the state of the craft in the current moment.
“The artefact references historical textile samplers, usually rectangular embroidered pieces that acted as points of reference for needlework. But most importantly, samplers also offered women a voice, particularly at times when needlecraft was closely linked to femininity and domestic life. What women chose to embroider on these pieces often reflected their lived experiences, education or social realities. So such samplers were really quite personal records,” explains Paulina.
Paulina’s IZBA project similarly gave a voice to her collaborators.
Margarita Charalambous, the Cypriot artisan, embroidered a piece of linen using an endangered embroidery technique called lefkaritiko, with a design expressing the uncertain future of the generations-old craft: “You can really see it in the final piece — the motif has a kind of abrupt ending — intentionally unfinished, so it looks like the journey [of the craft],” explains Paulina. The design gives the piece a modern edge while remaining loyal to tradition.
In contrast, the Polish artisan, Wiesława Juroszek, created a hopeful composition: using the Koniaków needle lace technique, she weaved a flourishing semi-circular composition onto the side of the linen “reflecting the increasing visibility and collaborative opportunities emerging for her community today,” explains Paulina.
Paulina's methodology built a safe space for creative exploration, and allowed for a poetic final outcome that tells a layered story.
It also marked the beginning of an ongoing project and relationship: the linen Margarita chose to work on has a special origin, having been inherited from her grandmother. As the original textile is quite long, Paulina and Margarita discussed continuing the project over time: “So it's not a project that I just archived; I think it's something that's going to evolve in the future,” says Paulina.
Similarly, the relationships Paulina built at Xtant will not only endure but continue to expand. In fact, within a month of completing the programme, her circle had already grown to include Astrid Suzano, co-founder of Portuguese non-profit Passa Ao Futuro.
The values and mission of Passa Ao Futuro are aligned with those of Xtant, and, after the leadership programme, Kavita Parmar reached out to Paulina in a bid to support them. In the spirit of working in concert toward a sustainable future for age-old crafts, Paulina is helping Astrid design and build a new website for Passa Ao Futuro's 10th anniversary.
“The real impact that Passa Ao Futuro has on Portuguese craftspeople and the depth of the project, it's so aspirational. Without coming to Xtant, I would never have connected with them; it was so special,” says Paulina.
Each project, initiative, and interaction creates a ripple effect, expanding to unite more passionate, like-minded individuals. Each connection brings a more hopeful present and future.
When Paulina Czajor entered her fashion design course in 2016, she was full of youthful idealism: “I stepped into studying fashion with this big hope of what the industry is, how beautiful and interconnected it can be, and how it can weave together all my passions,” she explains.
She soon witnessed the other side of the industry but, by staying centred in her values, following her curiosity, and collaborating with like-minded individuals, she has made those early visions of her career a reality. Having had so many inspiring, hands-on, connective experiences in the world of craft and its intersection with design and sustainability, Paulina has great optimism for the future, not only for the change she can effect, but for the next generation:
“The more I speak with the people who are early in their fashion design courses, I can see the way they speak about craft is different. I think a lot of people want to go back to learning the root of craft and, for example, sign up for fellowship programmes to learn from artisans. I think in young people, this spirit of approaching craft is really genuine. There is hope in the new generation for sure,” she says.
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Photo credits top to bottom, left to right: images 1 and 5-8 by Paulina Czajor; images 2-3, 9-10 and 12 of Xtant by Yuki Sugiura; image 4, portrait of Paulina Czajor by Lana Engel; image 11, film still from ‘Weavers of Janów’
