Spring usually arrives with a familiar urge to reset—a quiet impulse to clean out the old and move forward into a fresh season. In the studio, we’re looking at wabi-sabi as a way to ground that transition. It’s the visual evidence that a human hand was actually here. The Monty Cotton Top in Sala Square blockprint is a study in this kind of soul. Because these are hand-blockprinted using carved wood, the ink density shifts across the fabric. A square might land with a slightly different weight than the one beside it; the registration has a natural, rhythmic movement. These are the signatures of the artisan.
There is a tactile intelligence to hand-loomed cotton that a factory can’t replicate. It has a grain, a weight, and a memory. This is slow-made clothing designed to be lived in—to soften, to catch the light, and to develop a patina the more it's worn. Natural dyes have an editorial quality that digital prints lack, and those subtle shifts in color give a blockprint top its character. The organic, irregular grain of the fabric serves as a physical reminder of the weaver’s rhythm.
Pieces that get better as they age have a specific kind of staying power. A well-loved PO-EM top that has softened over several seasons carries more style than something pristine and soulless. Spring is coming. It’s a good time to move forward in something that feels as real as the season itself.
