What craftsmanship has taught me about international trade
by Clarisse :)
When I started my studies in international business, it was primarily for reasons that went far beyond numbers: a desire to travel, discover the world, create links between cultures. I saw trade as a way to connect people, ideas and knowledge. I was fascinated by the global economic dynamics but what I was most passionate about was the human aspect behind the numbers: who produces? Why? How? And under what conditions?
This is the view I kept when I arrived in Berlin for my internship at Dirty Roots. I had chosen this city thinking to find a frantic pace, an energy almost exhausting, like Paris. And finally, I came across the opposite: a quiet space, authentic, where you breathe, where you take time to do things right. The company itself is like this.
From theory to reality: a shock
Before I joined Dirty Roots, I was still very much rooted in the «macro» vision of trade: prices on world exchanges, models, figures, volumes. You learn how to negotiate, calculate, optimize. And it’s exciting but a little dehumanized sometimes. I needed to make sense of it all.
At Dirty Roots, I discovered another facet of commerce: the one that comes from the hand of the craftsman, respect for the material, slowness. I saw Adam working on his spheres, handmade pots to accommodate plants with precision, patience and almost meditative attention. Each piece is thought, designed, shaped with care. Nothing is standardized and nothing is rushed. Here we do not produce to produce: we create with an intention.
Cassiopeia: a manifesto against mass trade
The Cassiopeia collection, recently revealed, has particularly marked me. It is a series of five unique sphere, each representing one of the five main stars in the constellation. Five rough, textured, almost cosmic spheres that seem to tell their own story. No overproduction, no infinite declination, just a few objects that make sense.
In a world where trends follow each other at an insane speed and where people consume without thinking, this collection has brought some light and hope from the space. She reminded me that there are other ways to create. That scarcity, quality and emotion often outweigh quantity.
Reconciling craft and international trade
This internship made me understand that international trade is not necessarily synonymous with standardization or mass production. It can be a tool for enhancing local knowledge, respectful cultural exchanges and human-scale collaborations.
When you sell a Dirty Roots sphere abroad, you don’t just sell an object. We transmit a philosophy: respect for the living, conscious creation, imperfect beauty. And that is the international trade that I want to defend. A trade that connects rather than crushes. Who exchanges rather than exploits.
A lesson for my future
What I learned from this experience is that you can combine performance with humanity. You can trade while listening to the world. And that even in an era marked by urgency, it is still possible and necessary to slow down.