We make good things for your sustainable kitchen.
Magpie Cookshop is the brainchild of Louisa Shafia and Sabahat Chaudhary, two friends who are passionate about sustainability and style.
Louisa and Sabahat were just wee young things when they met at a restaurant in New York's West Village. Louisa was the only woman cooking in the kitchen, and Sabahat had a sweet vintage wardrobe that made her stand out from the other servers. The two women bonded over a love of design, a nerdy obsession with homesteading skills like repurposing old clothes and food composting, and their shared Pennsylvania roots.
Time took the women in different directions. Louisa became a chef and food writer, authoring a cookbook about how to be eco-friendly in the kitchen, and then a book on Persian food that was a tribute to her Iranian heritage. Sabahat graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, and landed a position at a leading corporate law firm in Washington, DC.
The two remained close friends: Sabahat was Louisa's trusted consultant during her wedding dress fittings, and Louisa assembled the snack bags for Sabahat's wedding favors. Every couple of years they would talk about collaborating on a project that combined their love of design with their dedication to sustainability.
During one of Louisa's visits to Sabahat in DC, the two had a frank talk about their careers. Sabahat was longing to explore her creative side, and Louisa felt ready to strike out as an entrepreneur. The timing felt right, and over the next few months, the two brainstormed, researched, and pestered business-savvy friends for advice until the concept for Magpie Cookshop took shape. Inspired by the nascent rebirth of the American textile industry, and by Sabahat's family history in the fabric trade, they settled on textiles as the focus of their business.
Reusable, locally manufactured, pesticide-free—and an essential part of any kitchen—fabrics perfectly express the green, stylish, and epicurean passions of Magpie's founders.
Patterns were sketched, eco-friendly fabrics like hemp and organic cotton were selected, local east coast manufacturers were found, and samples were sewn. With each step, Magpie’s eco-friendly vision came into being. Starting with the initial design for the Waxed Cotton Lunch Bag with Leather Handle, Magpie’s offerings grew into an entire line of products, including its most recent, the Rice Bonnet.
Magpie Cookshop proudly brings you its fresh line of kitchen goods, in the hope that the thought and love that went into making them will let you skip the work and go straight to the fun part of shopping and cooking!