Hello.
I'm Sasha — the person behind every piece in this shop.
ALMA MAYA carries my grandmother's name. I loved her very much, and I still do. The name was never a coincidence to me. Alma means "soul" in Portuguese and "nourishing" in Latin — the one who gives life and keeps it going. Maya, in Slavic tradition, belongs to the one born in spring; in Sanskrit, it's the creative force that gives the world its shape. Life, source, quiet strength. That is exactly who she was. I understood it was always meant to be this way.
My roots are in southern Ukraine, where endless steppes meet the waters of the Dnipro. That is where the light in my head still comes from. Then the war came, and we left. You pack fast. You take almost nothing. For a long time afterwards I kept reaching for things that were no longer in the cupboard.
My home now is Portugal, where cliffs meet the Atlantic. There's a Portuguese word here that doesn't translate — saudade. A bright kind of longing. Missing something deeply, while being quietly grateful it ever existed at all.
That's what this shop is made of. Memory turned into something you can actually hold.
WHY THIS LINEN
I work only with linen woven in Belgium, from flax grown in Europe.
- 100% linen, woven in Flanders — on the same ground since 1858
- OEKO-TEX® Standard 100, class II — tested for harmful substances, safe against skin
- Belgian Linen™ — woven in Belgium, min. 85% EU-origin flax, traceable by certificate number
- Masters of Linen® — made entirely in Europe: field, fibre, yarn, cloth
- Purveyor to the Belgian Royal Court, appointed 2006
- CO2-neutral company, certified since 2014
- Zero-waste production, and fully biodegradable at the end of its life
Linen doesn't wear out. It softens. Like people, it becomes more precious with time. But when it finally does end: linen is fully biodegradable. An independent study measured complete degradation in 6.5 months.
WHAT I STITCH INTO THEM
Everything is cut, sewn, and embroidered by me, here in Portugal. I leave the edges raw and I don't iron the wrinkles out. A crease in linen isn't neglect — it's proof the thing is real, and that you're allowed to be too.
The embroidery is my own design, and it's deliberately not factory-perfect. Closer to marks scratched on stone than to decoration:
- A single fish — life moving through time, swimming the fresh water of the Dnipro and the salt of the Atlantic alike
- A sun sinking into a horizon line — warmth, cycles, hope
- Steppe grass bending in the wind — flexible, unbroken
- A diamond with a dot at its centre — the old Ukrainian sign for a sown field. Abundance. Ground under your feet. Home
I stitch tone on tone. I want a shadow, not a statement.
WHO I MAKE THIS FOR
For people of sun, wind, and water. For anyone tired of plastic, fast fashion, and loud advertising. For people who read paper books, who'd rather have one good glass of wine than five cocktails, who love the smell of the sea after a storm. For anyone looking for tactile grounding — that moment when you touch a living fabric and stop, just for a second.
A robe you wake up in should look just as right thrown over jeans on the way to the ocean for coffee. A bread cloth should make Sunday breakfast feel like a ritual. These things are meant to be used, not saved for later. Later has a way of not arriving.
If you ever have a question — sizing, custom embroidery, how a fabric actually feels in the hand — write to me. I answer every message myself.
Thank you for being here. Wear it with pride. Live freely.
The home you carry with you.