Kente, bogolanfini, adire, shweshwe — the names are shorthand for centuries of technique, trade and meaning woven into cloth.
To read a textile properly is to read a record: who made it, for whom, and for what occasion.
A living craft, not a museum piece
Contemporary designers are reworking these traditions rather than preserving them under glass, and the weavers themselves are increasingly the ones setting terms.
Provenance and fair pricing are the fight worth having as global demand grows.
“Cloth remembers what archives forget.”
