Handmade Things are an Experience

It’s been a minute , in a year that is excessively feeling like a whirlwind of exceedingly bad

news all round.

We’ve tried to steer clear of watching the news channels but this is hardly realistic (the curious mind persists)

We've been amazed at the effects this has had on us and have been waking up doing our daily’s with a heavy hearts and an unshakable weight on our shoulders. Even with latent positive, exciting journeys abound.

How people dress/style/ fashion/clothing, has always been acutely influenced by lifestyle cycles and we are currently living in what I will call the Shein-ing of everything. Our insatiable want for convenience at any cost has brought us to this. Fast, replaceable, easy to attain, unmemorable …things.

A hollowing out. Rendering everything flat.

Needless to say the creative compass has been scattered. So we have gone back to our grounding, making, crafting, learning, keeping our hands busy trying to lessen the load of the over burdened mind.

Opposing this flattening, has lured us into thinking about layers and dimension, but always in our wearable, easy elegance.

We started collecting a handful of images of woman,particularly examples of daily “dress” of 19th & early 20th century African women. The layered, folded & tucked shapes, creating dimension yet practical & easy.

So we’re dressing in layers going in to spring & summer.

We are excited to see & feel how this idea & influence unfolds.

We still believe that handmade things are an experience.

Not so basic BASICS

It’s been a minute, and what was intended to be frequent burst of opinion pieces on clothing details proved to be quite challenging to pull together that frequently.

There has also been a bit of a struggle from our end to feel fuelled during “current world mood and energy” which has been a tad heavy, chaotic and deeply serious.

All reflected of course in the clothing industry which is an acute mirror of society at any given time, a bit of a double-edged sword. A source of ever changing and ever giving inspiration but also in somber times can make the endeavour and industry feel quite frivolous and surface.

But a massive and sharp realisation for us has been that:

Nothing that brings you joy and raises your spirit (Me in a Fabric shop discovering beautiful textiles) can be deemed unimportant. It is exactly what we need to hold on to currently.

So… we have recoiled to making not so basic BASICS, and what are those for us:

Easy to wear, comfortable pieces, but with a point of difference, a point of joy, that can be layered with your “basic basics” over or under shirts and body gloves, for modesty or warmth with winter looming over here, or just worn as great stand-alone statements…a little bit of everyday joy.

PLEATS of course

Every clothing design brand or house has what is called “house codes” and no matter if it’s a decades old fashion house or a street wear brand established a couple of months ago. House codes are the design nuances that become synonymous with the brand, that make the items they make instantly recognisable as theirs.

If you had to ask us here at GoodFriday about our “House Codes”? pleats of course! would be very high up on our list. There’s something about pleats that is instantly elegant and refined. Pleats exude an elevated edge and endless iterations producing something surprising and fresh every time.

We did a bit of a geek-ing and found the below:

History first sees the introduction of the pleat in ancient Egyptian garments to define the tunics of the upper class, where references suggest that the technique was imposed on natural fabrics, like linen, differences in class and status were demonstrated by the fineness of the cloth, with many garments laid out in the sun and

'bleached' white, before being enhanced with pleating.

No one is quite sure how the ancient Egyptians pleated linen, writes the royal Ontario museum on the topic.

A fascinating bit of history on the art of pleating with a narrative that gives even more intrigue to this alluring fabric manipulation technique.

You will always find pleats lingering in most (may be all) of our drops, a permanent fixture on our inspo boards for sure.