Hard & breezy

The endless sauce of waxed cotton, summery knits, vintage woven straw bags & more

Welcome to Concorde, Blackbird Spyplane’s “women’s vertical” that the fellas love as well. Every edition is archived here.

This is the new ugly shoe.

Here’s what you learn about getting dressed when you wear black for a month straight.

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Erin back with you once again. In today’s Concorde we’ve got:

• Summery cotton knits: tees, tanks, shorts & dresses

• I talk to a single maker who crafts clothing, bags and hats — inspired by his hometown’s fishing trade — out of nothing but hard-wearing waxed cotton

• A trove of vintage woven straw bags

• A Slapper Swarm of new (and newish) good reads, including a zine for people who care about clothes and the people who make them; a photo book with inspired workwear looks; and a fantastic, very short novel…

Let’s get to it —

What is it about waxed cotton I find so magnetic? My hands are drawn to its paradoxically slick grip. Manhandle it, and you create a constellation of beautiful creases in the fabric. Color-wise, the cotton can appear fully drenched, yet as radiant as stained glass.

Also? It’s a durable, proto-“technical” material that’s the result not of advanced polymer chemistry but of bees and flowers linking & building. I appreciate waxed cotton’s tough utility, which, for centuries, has made it a great choice for gear — camping tents, ship sails, military uniforms, etc. — but never once at the expense of flyness.

This isn’t the first time I’ve waxed poetic. And I was psyched to tap in recently with an under-the-radar designer who makes everything from fine dry wax cotton. In his hands, that humbly miraculous material is transformed into cute hats in snappy colors, clever bags and, for the first time this season, ready-to-wear clothes: