What We Stand On

Four things we hold to. We name the tradition our pattern comes from and credit it, rather than calling the pattern our own. We label our materials plainly: the woven cloth is 100% acrylic, and the caps are made in Peru. We make in small batches and sell out rather than overproduce. And we do not claim a certification or a sourcing story we cannot back up; this page lists exactly what we do and nothing more.

Cloth over gold

In the Inca world the most valuable thing was not metal but cloth. The finest weavings were reserved for rulers and gods, and pattern carried meaning the way writing does elsewhere. We take that seriously in a plain way: the cloth is the point of every piece we make, and everything else, the twill, the strap, the label, is there to carry it. Read the longer version on The Craft.

Ayni, reciprocity

Ayni is the Andean rule of mutual return: today for you, tomorrow for me. Our cloth does not come from Andean weaving households, so we will not dress our version up as a purchasing policy. What we can return is credit. The pattern takes its voice from that tradition, so we name the tradition on our pages and products, and when we learn that something we said is wrong, we correct it. More on ayni.

Tocapu, pattern as language

Andean pattern was never decoration. It named communities, ranks and stories. So we do not copy royal designs like tocapu, and we do not print an imitation onto plain fabric: our pattern is inspired by everyday aguayo and woven into the cloth, and we say so. The chakana on the front of most of our caps is the one symbol we add, in thread (the patch camp caps carry a woven Inpire patch instead), and we explain it on its own page.

Pachamama, small batches

We make in small batches and no more. Drops are small, colourways sell out, and we would rather have a cap missing than a warehouse full. Shipping is tracked, and any two caps ship free. More on pachamama.

What we do not claim

We are not Fair Trade certified, B Corp certified, or organic certified, and we will not use those words until an independent body has checked us. We do not describe our cloth as anything other than what it is, and any illustrated image on this site is labelled as such. If you are writing about us and want to check any of the above, write to us and we will answer with what we have.

See how it is made, where the pattern comes from and the materials.