NEW TEXTILE ALERT! HAND-WOVEN COTTON KHADI SOLIDS ARE HERE!
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We've got two new beautiful textiles to share with you, and we couldn't be more excited about how they turned out. As you know, we're big fans of bright color, and while it was tough to narrow down the palette at first, we are absolutely thrilled with these two vibrant new dresses.
In order to highlight the depth and complexity of these hand-spun and hand-woven fabrics, we wanted to explore a new sphere of texture. As you know, we've been making our solids with a mix of cotton and linen, maximizing luminosity while minimizing wrinkles, but there are so many incredible weaving traditions across India. When we saw the woven samples of these 100% cotton khadi fabrics, we absolutely fell in love -- we hope you will, too.
First, we'd love to share a bit about the rich history of the khadi textile tradition.
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The modern revival of the khadi is owed to Mahatma Gandhi, who promoted the use and production of these fabrics as a source of self-reliance and self-employment in rural areas of India, in opposition to British colonial mill culture. He believed that the very spinning of khadi fabric was an exercise in patience, and saw the simplicity of the fabric as a sort of social equalizer. In his words, "The ‘khadi spirit’ means fellow-feeling with every human being on earth." |
| Khadi textile production is an intricate, two step process: first, hand-spinning the fiber into yarn using a wheel called a charkha, and then using a handloom to weave the yarn into fabric. This process results in a textile that has a beautiful, uneven texture and a weight that's both cool in the summer and warm in the winter. |
A huge thanks goes out to the fair-trade collective at Sasha in West Bengal, and all the individual weavers who created these gorgeous textiles, as well as our team in Kenya at Soko who turned these stunning fabrics into dresses!
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In addition to her fashion line, Exit 14, whose fabulous coats many of you may remember from our pop-up last fall, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond is the author of the new children's book featured below!
We're thrilled to have Nana back at our Bleecker Street shop on March 5th for a reading by of her new children's book, BLUE, where she'll take us through the history and evolution of the use of the color blue through space and time. We hope you'll join us with the little ones in your life!
Where: 363 Bleecker Street
Date: Saturday, March 5th
Time: 1-2PM
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WHAT WE'RE READING // BLUE: A History of Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky
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For centuries, blue powders and dyes were some of the most sought-after materials in the world. Ancient Afghan painters ground mass quantities of sapphire rocks to use for their paints, while snails were harvested in Eurasia for the tiny amounts of blue that their bodies would release. And then there was indigo, which was so valuable that American plantations grew it as a cash crop on the backs of African slaves. |
It wasn't until 1905, when Adolf von Baeyer created a chemical blue dye, that blue could be used for anything and everything--most notably that uniform of workers everywhere, blue jeans.
Written by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond with stunning illustrations by Caldecott Honor Artist Daniel Minter, this vibrant and fascinating picture book follows one color's journey through time and across the world, as it becomes the blue we know today.
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The Open Xchvng (pronounced "exchange") podcast creates a free and safe space for men to discuss their feelings, insecurities, anxieties, and how each member of the conversation has worked to overcome them. We were lucky enough to meet the entire team on Saturday after a recording session at the podcast studio down the hall from our new warehouse, and we loved what they had to say! |
| If you have loved Chiwoniso's music as much as we have, we think you'll really enjoy Stella Chiweshe's album, Talking Mbira. Known as the Mbira Queen of Zimbabwe, she introduced the combination of mbira and marimba into the modern Zimbabwe music scene, and is one of the first and still best known female mbira players today. |
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WE CAME, WE DRESSED, WE MINGLED // SCENES FROM NYC!
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We had so much fun with you all, and were thrilled to welcome you to our new NYC warehouse this weekend! From FaceTiming with mom to twinning with new friends, it was so much fun spending time together! For those of you who were able to join us either in person or through our Instagram stories, we hope you're loving your fabulous finds! Thank you all for a sale that was truly filled with friends and family:)
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