The Hunt for the Right Fabric

I thought choosing the fabric would be one of the simpler parts of creating The Gatherer.

I knew what I wanted—or at least, I thought I did. The fabric needed to be strong enough for real work, comfortable enough to wear throughout the day and breathable enough for the South African climate. It needed to soften with wear without losing its character. And, wherever possible, I wanted it to be made from natural fibres.

Then the swatches began arriving.

Some were beautifully soft but too light. Others were wonderfully strong but so heavy that I could not imagine wearing them through a South African summer. Some had the right composition but not the right structure. Others looked promising on paper and felt completely wrong in my hands.

The more I learned, the more complicated the decision became.

More than a colour and a texture

Before beginning this journey, I thought about fabric largely in terms of how it looked and felt. I quickly discovered that choosing material for a hardworking garment requires a much longer list of questions.

How much does it weigh?

Does it breathe?

How does it move?

Will it recover after stretching?

Can it withstand repeated kneeling, bending and washing?

Will it soften beautifully, or simply lose its shape?

How much will it shrink?

How will it respond to dye?

And perhaps most importantly: does it suit the garment it is being asked to become?

The Gatherer is not intended to be a fashion version of workwear. She needs to perform.

Her fabric must support deep pockets, reinforced knees, hardware and practical details without becoming stiff or cumbersome. It must allow a woman to crouch beside a garden bed, climb over a fence, carry an armful of produce and continue with the rest of her day.

Finding a fabric capable of all this became a search for balance.

Why hemp?

I kept returning to hemp.

Hemp has a natural connection to the Slow By Nature philosophy. It is a strong, breathable plant fibre with a beautifully honest texture. It does not feel overly polished or precious. It looks as though it belongs in a working life.

It also has the potential to become more beautiful with use. Rather than needing to remain untouched and perfect, a hemp garment can soften, develop character and begin to tell the story of the person wearing it.

That mattered to me.

I do not want to make clothing that women are afraid to live in. I want to make garments that can gather evidence of a life well used: a softened seam, a faded fold, perhaps even a stubborn mark left by soil or work.

But choosing hemp did not end the search.

Hemp can be woven and blended in many different ways. Its weight, composition and finish dramatically affect how it behaves. A fabric suitable for a light summer shirt would not support The Gatherer’s structure. A very heavy canvas might be wonderfully durable but too rigid and warm for everyday wear.

So I spent weeks comparing samples, asking questions and returning to the same swatches again and again.

My worktable slowly disappeared beneath fabric books, measuring tape, hardware, notes and little handwritten calculations.

Finding Green Route

Eventually, the search led me to Green Route Hemp Industries.

Their hemp bull denim had the substance and natural character I had been looking for. It felt strong and reassuring in my hands, but it also held the promise of softening with wear. It looked capable of becoming a garment that could work hard and age honestly.

The fabric arrived natural and undyed.

At first glance, that might appear to be an unfinished starting point. To me, it felt full of possibility. The warm, unbleached cloth allowed us to choose the colour deliberately rather than simply accepting whatever was already available.

But it also introduced another stage into the making process.

The fabric would need to be professionally dyed before production. Dyeing can affect more than colour: water, heat and handling can also cause natural fabric to shrink. If that shrinkage happens after a garment has been cut and constructed, different sections may respond unpredictably. The garment can become smaller than intended or, worse, pull and warp out of shape.

That was not a risk I was willing to ignore.

After conversations with Green Route, the product developer and the dye house, the way forward became clear: dye—and effectively pre-shrink—the fabric before the first sample is cut.

It means adding another step now. But it also means the pattern maker will be working with fabric that has already been through the process it will experience before future production. The sample should therefore give us a much more truthful understanding of how The Gatherer will fit, fall and behave.

This is exactly what thoughtful making looks like to me: not rushing past a question simply because the answer adds time.

The colour had ideas of its own

For a long time, I imagined The Gatherer in olive green.

It felt natural, practical and deeply connected to the garden. I could already see the garment in that colour.

The dyeing process had other ideas.

I was advised that olive would be difficult to reproduce consistently on this fabric. For a single experimental garment, slight variation might be charming. For a production range, inconsistency between dye batches could become a serious problem.

So olive had to wait.

The first Gatherer will instead take shape in rust and brown —and I find that I do not mind this change at all.

Rust feels equally rooted in the landscape. It carries the colours of soil, terracotta, weathered metal and late-afternoon light. It is warm, practical and full of life. Perhaps it was where we were meant to begin.

That has become one of the early lessons of this journey: creating something thoughtfully requires a clear vision, but it also requires enough flexibility to listen when the materials tell you something different.

Ready for the next pair of hands

The fabric has now been sent to the dye house.

While it is being transformed, all the other components for the sample are ready: the hardware, zippers, fastenings, elastic, labels and the many small pieces that have taken weeks to find and gather.

Soon, I will deliver everything personally to the women who will begin turning this collection of materials and ideas into a pattern and a first sample.

There are still many unknowns ahead.

The fabric may behave differently once it has been cut and constructed. Details that make perfect sense in my notes may need to be changed when tested on a real body. The first sample will almost certainly not be the final garment—and it should not be.

That is why we make a sample.

But after weeks of searching, comparing and questioning, the foundation is finally there.

The Gatherer has found her fabric.

Now we wait to see what shape she takes.