Majeda was born in Bangladesh on a tea plantation, surrounded by colour and textiles. This has influenced much of her work from the Jamdani weaves that were taught to her by UNESCO World Heritage Weavers in Dhaka, to her choice of bright pops of colour that both clash and blend like the many saris worn around her. Majeda’s understanding of neutral backgrounds are not navy, grey or white, but pastels and deep colours in every hue, part of her experience of seeing colour in Asian clothing. This gave her the confidence to use mint green with lilacs and oranges, or sky blue with olives.
She came to Britain aged five and grew up in Manchester. Her first degree and MA was English Literature and she worked in education for almost 20 years as an English teacher and education consultant for Camden Education. Majeda went back to university to study a Textile Design BA after her third child started school. She received a 1st class degree and attained the highest dissertation mark. From there she received the Clothworkers and Cockpit Foundation award, and has been based at Cockpit Bloomsbury ever since. Her love of storytelling in both cloth and writing stems from her English Literature background.
Majeda initially trained in print design before she discovered weave and immediately knew she wanted to work in 3D constructed textiles. The early love of colour that led her to print then developed into all the infinite possibilities of colour and light when applied to different materials and structural weave techniques. Working in yarn and having the opportunity to create any material, finish, texture she wanted was like “working magic”.
After being featured in The World of Interiors, Majeda received a huge commission in Atlanta, Georgia that enabled her to buy her first loom and set up her Cockpit studio. Her practice is now a combination of interiors and accessories; blankets, scarves, colour consultancy and hand woven art. She has appeared in several international publications inckludingWall Street Journal which enabled my work to become established in the US, and UK publications Elle Decoration and Living Etc.