The Story Behind Siganna

My name is Hellen  Shillawency Otieno, a daughter from the lakeside, Kisumu City, Kenya.

My journey with sewing began when I was still a young girl, around ten or eleven years old. After school,  I would spend hours watching a familyfriend’s daughter, Awino, sewing bright African prints outside my father’s shop.

I was drawn to the beautiful  colours, the skirts and the dresses she carefully made for her clients, and the quiet moments when she sat alone, cutting and sewing vibrant vitenge fabrics.

I admired her old, heavy Singer sewing machine , my hands were small, but I still asked if I could try. I wanted to learn. 

Over the years, life changed. I moved, grew, and adapted. There were periods when I wasn’t sewing, but the love for it never left me.

Later, an important life decision brought me to Barcelona. Here, I found a city rich in diversity, filled with people from all over the world. In that space, something became clear to me: my identity does not change with location, it travels with me. It lives within me.

Why Siganna ?

Siganna comes from a word I grew up with in Luo, my mother tongue. In Luo, sigana means storytelling, folktales. These were the stories that held us together at home. They shaped how we understood the world, teaching us how to care, how to listen, and how to belong. Most of these stories were told by our grandparents, who carried the wisdom of lived experience. In the evenings, we sat close, sharing tea or sitting by the fire, listening as stories passed gently from elder to child, from mother to daughter, from neighbour to friend.

Siganna is how I carry those stories forward. Not only with words, but with fabric, with my hands, with love. Every piece I make holds something of where I come from. It carries my memories, my imagination, and the values I was raised with.

 What I Hope Siganna Passes On

I hope Siganna gives you something gentle to hold onto. A reminder that you come from somewhere. That you have a background, a name, a language, and a culture. That the first lessons you learned, the values passed down to you, are still alive and still matter.

And even if your story began far from mine, I hope Siganna helps you feel closer to your own. That it reminds you that all cultures carry meaning, and that we are more connected through craft, care, and shared humanity than we often realise.

I hope Siganna helps you feel grounded in who you are, while allowing you to grow into yourself. That when you wear Siganna, you feel a quiet pride. Proud of where you come from, proud of your journey, proud of the beauty you carry.

I hope Siganna feels open and welcoming. A space where you can step into another culture with respect, curiosity, care, and carry a piece of it with you in your own way.

I hope Siganna invites a more conscious way of living. Choosing beauty with intention. Supporting hands, stories, and ways of making that are thoughtful and sustainable. When you choose Siganna, you are not simply buying a piece. You are choosing to support a way of life that values craft, culture, and care. Because sometimes, something as small as choosing a handmade piece can be a quiet act of love for this earth.

Siganna is for all of that. And for all of us.