How we choose
FOUR CHECKS,THEN THE hard one.
We do not make cloth, so the only thing we have to offer is judgment. This is what that actually means, in order, standing in front of a bolt we might buy.
01
Where we go
Ghanaian mills, other West African producers, European wax houses, and further afield when something is worth the trip. There is no standing order and no fixed list of suppliers — good cloth turns up in different places each season, and the only way to find it is to go and look.
02
The hand
Weight and stiffness between the fingers. This is the fastest test there is: cheap wax gives itself away as a papery finish long before it gives itself away in the wash, and no price makes that worth buying.
03
The light
Held up against the light, the weave shows how densely it was made. It tells us whether the cloth has body, whether it will hold a seam, and whether whatever you sew from it is going to need lining.
04
The colour
Rubbed, and wetted. If dye lifts onto a thumb at the stall it will lift in a bucket at home. That is the complaint that arrives six months later, and the one we would rather never receive.
05
The selvedge
The edge carries the mill's marks and an honest record of the printing — registration, saturation, and how much care went into the run. It is where a print stops being able to flatter itself.
06
The hard question
Everything above only establishes that a cloth is good. The last question is whether anyone needs it. Half of Accra is selling the same handful of prints, and a good cloth everybody already has is worth neither your money nor our shelf. Most of what passes the first five checks is left behind at this one.
Come and seewhat is in this week.
Stock changes constantly. What is here now may not be here next month.