We have visited most continents and many countries.
From small villages to ever expanding megacities.
We are honoured to have established strong bonds with various heritage, culture and craft rich communities.
We first met Xander back in 2009 at a music event in Copenhagen. Satoru was mystically drawn to Xander’s energy, which was the catalyst for the encounter. It was a "point of no return” in this friendship, once he learnt that Xander was from South Africa.
As part of our journey in Ghana, we wanted to deepen our understanding of traditional and contemporary Ghanaian crafts. Kwamena Boison, co-founder of The Revival Project introduced us to brass and glass makers in Accra and Kpong.
We recently returned from our African adventure. Our journey started inAccra, Ghana, where we met up withHarris ElliottfromLe Tingsand Yayra Agbofah ofThe Revival Project. Our purpose inAccrawas to experience the reality of the textile waste caused by our overconsumption in the global north.
“You must never judge people by the colour of their skin. Racism is never acceptable, under any circumstances.” These were the words of our late father, repeated to us time and again while he was alive. There was a powerful reason why he insisted on this message with such conviction.
Every bag in the collection feature traditionally woven “Aguayo” fabric both on the exterior and interior in eye-catching design with the brightly colored green and purple interior fabric evokes the vibrancy of the "Aguayo" colours. In addition all models come with an adorable hand crocheted finger puppets inspired by PORTER. In Bolivia finger puppets have long been popular with women making them for their children and grandchildren.
We have been working on a preservation project to save the Black Alpaca species from extinction for more than a decade. This documentary film, directed by Kristian Pedersen, tells the story of how this project came to life and the remarkable result we have been able to achieve together with Pacomarca Alpaca Research Facility.
Some years ago, just before the pandemic in January 2020, we travelled to Okinawa with our dear friend Julien Colombier. On our journey we met with Kiyosaku and Tomo, who are the founders of Okinawa brand Aloha Blossoms.
We first met Harris through our showroom concept we created together with Touba London in 2009. Back then there was an empty property next to our hair salon, Environment, which was our London HQ for 15 years. This was how “The Showroom Next Door” started and continued on for many years in London, Paris, Tokyo, New York and Copenhagen.
When we first encountered the silk like touch of natural pima cotton it immediately made us want to make scarfs. Our fascination of beautifully screen printed scarfs was always in the back of our minds, however, we wanted a more contemporary look to compliment unique hand feel of the pima cotton fabric. The quality of the screen printing had to be equally beautiful and when we were introduced to one of the best textile printers in Japan we could finally start our natural Pima cotton scarf project.
In 2019 we introduced our first cotton collection using 100% natural Pima cotton, which originates from the northwestern regions of South America. Travelling extensively throughout Peru and Bolivia for over a decade, we discovered the long history of Pima cotton and its importance to the Indigenous people’s textile heritage. Pima and other species of cotton were widely grown for centuries with the first clear sign of domestication dating back to 4200 BCE.
Join us on our journey to explore a fairer kinder and
more sustainable way to produce what we love.
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