Natural-dye hand-made slappers & more gems: A SPYPLANE 'XCLUSIE
Our very rare Graziano & Gutiérrez SS22 event is live
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Ayyy what’s up ! Every day, it seems, someone new approaches us to ask, “Blackbird Spyplane: What do you do, and who do you do it for — and how do you come up with this s**t up in the studio?”
What we do is provide unbeatable recon that benefits both YOU, the beautiful & blessed members of Spy Nation and, we hope, small designers whipping up fresh & popping creations under the radar. (We come up with this s**t by closing our eyes, perceiving the contours of the face of g-d, and in that moment beholding true consciousness.)
Today we’ve got a high-potency case of the above, and we R stoked: We are longtime fans of the beautiful clothes from Graziano & Gutiérrez, a tiny Portland-based brand that sources rare fabrics from family weavers in Oaxaca and cuts them into ill jawnz. It’s been dope as h*ll to see G&G reach a bigger and bigger audience over the past couple years, selling out limited-edition capsules while keeping it extremely real — co-founder Alejandro Gutiérrez is “still doing all the pattern-making, sizing, cutting and sewing myself,” he reports, even as G&G jawnz pop up at Mach 3+ shops like No Man Walks Alone; get recommended in New York Magazine; appear all over Throwing Fits’ “Fit Check Fridays” roundups; and even get stocked in the official Trailblazers merch store?? 🏀 SWISH! 🏀
So it’s an “unbeatable honor” that in this email U hold before U, Graziano & Gutiérrez are debuting their SS22 collection, heavy on brand-new PHENOMENAL natural-dyed fabrics — and they are debuting it at Blackbird Spyplane only !!
Yes, for 24 hours, our Cla$$ified SpyFriends are the only people on the planet who can coppeth. What’s more, when the collection goes live to the public it will roll out over time in installments, but our ‘xclusie window includes every single piece!!
“D*mn,” you’re probably asking, “can I coordinate these fire jawnz using the incredible color-harmony principles you dropped in the sletter last week??” You would be a fool not to.
Alejandro let us know that, in addition to the Oaxacan weavers Graziano & Gutiérrez have worked with previously, “for this collection we partnered with one more community, based in San Sebastián Río Hondo. It’s called Khadi and it’s compromised of nearly 400 families who live and work in indigenous villages, and on traditional farms and homesteads… They grow their own cotton native to the Costa Chica of Oaxaca, and they have a group of women who specialize in removing the seeds and cleaning the cotton by hand. Once it’s cleaned they can spin it into thread, then dye all the thread and weave their own fabrics.”
This is special, painstaking, time-honored, labor-intensive s**t, and it shows:
We are on-the-record natural-dye appreciators, so we asked Alejandro to tell us more:
“The red fabric used for the guayabera (top above) is made with two different thread colors. The warp is yellow and is achieved using the Pericon or Mexican Tarragon or wild marigold, native to Oaxaca. They use the stem, leaves, and flowers which are boiled in big pots over a period of 3-4 hours to extract the color… Once this process is finished, they’ll add the thread to the Pericon and let it sit and dye overnight. For the weft they used a Coyuchi, or naturally growing brown cotton from Oaxaca as well.”
“The purple fabric we used for the SS Camp shirt (bottom above) is made from three different colored threads. For the warp they used pericon and indigo dyed thread. For the weft they added a coyuchi and cochineal dyed thread.”
Meanwhile, “the Indigo, or añil, grows along the coast of Oaxaca in a small town called Niltepec… They pick the wild plant, chop it, and put it in a fermentation bath for at least twelve hours. The plant material decomposes and collects at the bottom of the large vats as a thick paste. It’s then strained to separate any sediment. It takes about 200 kg of plants to produce 1 kg indigo dye...”
“The last piece we made with a naturally dyed fabric is another camp collar (center above, tucked into the very sick pants) with a fabric Khadi calls ‘Earth’ :). This fabric has a different weave called birdseye which creates the smaller diamond shape. The weave, along with these particular natural dyes, is one of our favorites. The warp is made utilizing a Pericon dyed thread which was then added to an indigo bath to turn the color green. The weft is the coyuchi cotton thread.”
Holy moly, it is incontrovertible that these jawns are not regular!! We R talking:
Drawstring easy pants & shorts,
patch-pocket fatigue pants & colorblock fatigue shorts
diamond-pattern hand-woven overshirts & chore coats,
the ill textured trucker jackets,
immortal short-sleeve camp shirts and a classic guayabera,
Roomy pleated trousers
Pearl-snap western shirts,
Natural-indigo work pants & work-shirts …
And more where that came from, partner.
To swing thru the 24-hour presale and ENJOY, you simply need to enter a special Cla$$ified Pa$$word that confirms yr status as a Mach 3+ hero who loves life, LIVES LIFE, and supports Blackbird Spyplane in exchange for many perks & pleasures: