Sewing Together Jacket collection is made of the sails that are used for the traditional DHOW boats in Kenya.
Through my travels along the coast, I met a sailor who helped me chase such sails from the border of Kenya and Somalia for a symbolic amount.
( . . from a sailor I met on a beach, to a new good friend and later ST model . . I love Kenya for the unknown waiting for you around the corner . . I will never forget Mr. S face when I asked him, if he knows any place I can get the sails to make a collection )
BTW ! Sailing is also very close to my heart, because I grew up practically on boats and water.
The process of creating a collection is very time consuming. We start by washing the material in warm water, which causes it to shrink. It seems easy, but you have to remember that we do not have washing machines and water is limited. Washing 40m of material in a bucket is quite difficult - we have done it as well in the evening where there was no electricity at times, under the a phone’s flashlight.
Then, cut out the shape of the jacket from the patterns prepared in advance. Overlock is important here, because our material has thick yarns, as it's woven 100% cotton, so we loose a lot on the edges. After sewing the so-called base of the jacket, the dyeing process begins.
The dried jacket returns to the sewing person to attach the lining (100% cotton) and ends with buttons or a zipper.
The process can take up to 2-3 days to make one jacket.
