Interior · Joure
Shariff & Maureen
“We dreamed of connecting my Dutch and Egyptian roots—so we built an atelier in Egypt.”
Néarr comes from Shariff's own roots. Half Egyptian and half Dutch, he and his wife Maureen had wanted for years to build something together with Egypt, and out of a shared love of good textiles that became Néarr: bed linen in genuine 100 percent Egyptian cotton, cut and sewn by hand in a small atelier in Egypt that he and Maureen run themselves, with no wholesaler in between. Most of the people who make it are women, in a workshop the couple helped build up. Maureen mostly keeps the showroom, on the Midstraat in Joure where they live, though the two do everything together. Shariff's other life, and his real passion, is out on the land: he works as a shepherd in the Drents-Friese Wold.