What's Hot! ELLE Decor Jan/Feb 2010

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Talk about an enormous honor! When ELLE Decor asked to feature our Senegalese Prayer Mat Laundry Hampers in their Jan/Feb 2010 issue, we were over the moon!

As seems to be the standard in our media appearances, there were hangups. Having visited our booth at the New York International Gift Fair and viewed our new products, the editor innocently requested samples of the only blue/white and yellow/white hampers we had in the States (they had just been introduced to the line and were still in production in Senegal). The two baskets requested were buried deep in our show booth pallets somewhere in a New Jersey warehouse, and getting them out would be nothing short of a miracle.

When we finally concluded we couldn't get those buried hampers in time for the photo shoot, we were forced to consider different colors, easier said than done since these VERY HOT hampers had been selling out in every color. Frantic phone calls to our Manhattan vendors generated one white hamper in the Calypso store on Fifth Avenue, but it sold before the writer's assistant could pop over to pick it up. Ahhhh!!!

Our current selection of Prayer Mat hampers & baskets:

We finally settled on two baskets we still had in stock, a medium green/white and a small white. At this point we were pretty sure we'd lost any chance of being included in the hallowed pages of ELLE Decor, but we sent the baskets express anyway, just on the chance that the heavens would open and allow us to do this major good deed for the Wolof ladies who create the hampers.

Our karma must be good, because the editor chose to keep us in the spread, and in December 2009 we appeared in very good company on newsstands EVERYWHERE.

Since the feature, we've received two 20' containers of hampers and other baskets, and we're still trying to keep up with the demand generated by the What's Hot feature. We're scheduling a 40' container for summer delivery, it will include some of the new styles and colors that Leslie is working on in Senegal in March.

Thank you, ELLE Decor, for this amazing act of benevolence to our Wolof ladies in Senegal. Their vision of selling their hampers to customers in the United States is coming true in a bigger way than they ever imagined, and we are forever in your debt for casting your trusted eye our way.

You can read all about the Wolof weavers by clicking here.