DE LA ESPADA VOLUME IV 67
66
have always collected fabrics from wherever I go;
I always regret when I cannot purchase a fabric.
And I thought, ‘Interesting! Me, having a fabric
mill! That’s like a dream come true. Wow! This
could be really interesting.’ ”
Mizette was careful to sell the business to people
who would maintain the tradition and continue the
evolution of the mantas, and Margarida, António
and Luís were the perfect choice. The partners
care deeply about the heritage and quality of the
mantas they produce, and they all made a pact
to live and work near the factory, to be more
intimately connected with the business and to
communicate directly with the weavers. They are
also adamant about maintaining the more complex,
labour-intensive weaves, even if they are less
commercially viable on a large scale, to honour
the tradition: “We want to show a work that is
rich and that is difficult because that’s the DNA
of those looms. And so we’ve been doing really
beautiful stuff, and premium.”
Part of the passion for the craft comes from
personal experience, both collective and individ-
ual: “I have those blankets here at home because
having a house in Alentejo and not having a blan-
ket or a rug at home is like being Italian and
not liking pasta. But the funny thing, yes, my
first Christmas present from my husband 16 years
ago was a Manta Alentejana number 28 from our
factory. So 16 years ago my husband knew I would
love these blankets and so he bought me a 180
piece that we actually use and we’ve been using
much before owning the factory. We have always
used [it] in our bed here in Alentejo. And so it’s
funny that 16 years afterwards, I am producing
the pattern 28 in many different colours because
I love it so much.”
The Fabricaal factory, for over 90 years, has been
evolving the story of these mantas. In the 1930s,
it began as a workshop focused on wool craft under
António Durão, then in the 1950s, the workshop
became Fabrica Alentejana de Lanificios under José
Rosa who turned the focus to the production of
mantas and created the Mantas de Reguengos brand
image. When interest in the blankets waned in the
1970s, Dutch artisan Mizette Nielsen took owner-
ship of the business, and worked to maintain the
tradition and quality of the Reguengos fabrics
while introducing innovations that responded to
modern times. In January 2020, the baton passed
to three new owners, António Carreteiro, Luís
Peixe and Margarida Adónis, and the factory was
rebranded as Fabricaal. Under their ownership,
the factory continues to innovate while holding
firmly to its heritage. We sat down with Margarida
Adónis to learn more about the story of the fac-
tory, this iconic Portuguese craft, and the way
her own personal story intertwines with it.
Margarida Adónis hasn’t always been a producer
of textiles. For 22 years she was an advertising
producer, running her own production company in
Lisbon. The fast pace and long hours of the job
kept her away from her young family for long
periods of time, so in 2019 she moved full time
to what had been her holiday home in Alentejo, in
search of a “more humble and more grounded and
less hectic and not so much consumerist and not so
much materialist life.” With her passion for tex-
tiles and friendly nature, she quickly befriended
Mizette Nielsen and enjoyed weekly chats with her
at the Fabricaal factory. When Mizette told her
that she wanted to sell the factory, Margarida was
excited by the possibilities: “I’ve always been a
producer but my passion, and my secret passion,
has always been interior decoration and fabrics.
I have a room full of fabrics until the roof. I
