How Tamashee Turns Sandal-Making Into Cultural Journeys

It started with a sandal. The founders of Gulf-based design studio Tamashee, Muneera Al Tamimi and Mohammed Kazim, took that everyday object apart — tracing materials to their sources, following old trade routes, and reviving craft techniques that had slipped from view — to see what a Gulf sandal could still mean today. Curiosity about how things were made soon became a method: research first, then design shaped by what the fieldwork revealed. 

That method now shows across three connected strands: Tamashee Products, Tamashee Soul, and Tamashee Experience. The studio turns field notes into objects, runs a research arm that records oral histories and endangered crafts, and runs guided cultural trips that put participants in direct contact with the places and people behind the work. The streams move into one another: products are sourced from research, research is tested in the field, and trips bring the whole cycle to life.

On the product side, the work reads like design with an archive in its pocket. Collections translate regional patterns, colors and shapes into pieces that aim for high quality at accessible price points; turquoise tones that recur in historic Gulf dress reappear in modern silhouettes, ring motifs from traditional footwear surface in detailing, and references to the Hijri calendar crop up as structural or decorative elements. Those choices are traceable to Tamashee’s field studies — they’re not surface decoration but part of how the pieces are conceived.

Tamashee Soul is where that fieldwork lives. Since 2012 the team has been cataloguing techniques, recording storytellers, and assembling material that otherwise has few formal records. That work feeds workshops, talks and documentaries, and shapes a program of collaborations that spans painters, photographers, sculptors, graffiti artists and musicians from across the GCC. Community projects and curated events grow from the same research: the studio documents a craft, then finds ways to show it, teach it or sustain the people who keep it alive. 

The culture tours are where Tamashee’s research becomes immediate. The studio runs both public departures and private, customizable trips that visit heritage towns, archaeological sites and coastal communities across the Arabian Peninsula — itineraries have included AlUla, Asir, Al Jawf, Tabuk, northern Najd, parts of Oman and the northern Emirates. Days are laid out like field guides: visits to local workshops, demonstrations of traditional techniques, small performances or festival visits when schedules allow, and shared meals where recipes and techniques are as much part of the program as the landscape. These are framed as research-led departures, with clear booking options and group-size limits that keep the trips intimate and practical. 

What makes the tours useful to the studio is their feedback loop: an embroidery pattern noted in a village becomes a motif in a collection; a recorded interview might form the backbone of a short film shown at a workshop. That interchange keeps the work practical — objects you can wear or use — while anchoring them in stories and people rather than in vague heritage language.

Tamashee lays its values across everything it does: preserving identity through primary research, representing culture by reshaping traditional forms for contemporary life, and creating avenues for regional makers and emerging creatives to reach a wider audience. The result is a practice that treats heritage as something active and adaptable.