Nouages by Afrika Tiss, a new collection of African Ikat

A graphic score set to the rhythm of African Ikat

At Storie, from June 7 to 22, 2019, Afrika Tiss, an ethical fashion and home accessories brand, will present its new woven table linen collection of tablecloths, runners and place mats, showcasing ikat, an ancestral resist-dyeing technique practiced in different parts of the world, including Burkina Faso.

Afrika Tiss runs initiatives that promote craft as a lever for economic and social development. It connects creators, designers and artisans to encourage the meeting of skills and the emergence of innovative products. The objects and accessories made by the artisans Afrika Tiss supports are sold on the local and international market, giving the artisans a fair, regular income.

"Nouages", or the binding of clouds

The name of this collection highlights an age-old technique found in many regions of the world, called ikat, "binding" in Indonesian, or abr, "cloud" in Uzbek. "Nouages" evokes both the resist-dyeing process, in which skeins of warp threads are tied before the loom is warped, and the floating effect with soft edges that the resulting pattern has. The fabric lets blurred flashes of color vibrate. In some traditions, they are said to reveal the presence of invisible spirits nestled between the weft and warp threads.

Although less well known than the ikat from Indonesia or Central Asia, African ikat offers a graphic score all its own. It first appeared on small woven strips of spindle-spun cotton, which did not allow complex designs, so it is more often found as dotted lines, with more or less random breaks in color.

For our "Nouages" collection, we drew on the many Burkinabé wrappers that alternate stripes and linear ikats.

A mixed collection: Manon Brugière with Afrika Tiss

Afrika Tiss collections come from artistic and cross-cultural collaborations. They reinterpret craft traditions while anchoring them in more contemporary trends, to open up new outlets for them. Our "Nouages" collection was developed through a collaboration between Manon Brugière, a Paris textile designer, and the weavers trained at our textile center in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

"The first ikat pattern research draws on the traditional weaving of Burkina Faso, the Faso dan Fani. The idea was to take the narrow weaving widths and revisit them on large looms. Keeping the rhythm of the stripes and ikats, I played with the scales and the colors inserted in the weft. On site, the weavers also took part in creating the patterns. Each of them brought a wrapper or ideas, and we co-created some patterns by mixing everyone's wishes."

Text by Afrika Tiss.