It is our mission to explore and express Asia's traditional textiles in modern day living. One way we do it is by transforming them into products for everyday life. Beyond the world of intricate Batik, we begin a new chapter of our textile journey with the magnificent songket of Lombok, Indonesia.
The village of Pringgasela on the island of Lombok have woven songket for generations. Evolving over the years, their songket today is of a classic, minimal style that fits easily into contemporary living.
Handwoven on backstrap looms that sit on the ground, each piece of textile takes 3-4 weeks to be completed by a skilled weaver. A wrong move or thread can cause a fault in the entire piece.
The elaborate dyeing methods add several more weeks to the weaving process. Despite chemical dyes proving to be a quicker way to produce colour, Pringgasela is among the handful of textile makers in Indonesia that still uses natural dyes in their textiles. Deriving colours from indigo, lime and various roots and leaves, generations of local knowledge is sustained within the community.
Out of these songket, comes our first collection of leather bags. We kick off with the Journey Tote, designed to hold all that we need on the daily with style and ease. Vegetable-tanned leather gives the bag structure, yet allows flexibility as it softens beautifully over time.
No product we make is ever released without us using them extensively ourselves. The past few months have seen the Journey Tote at work, travel and play as it carried our essentials from books to laptops. What we have found is a sense of comfort when something grows on and becomes a part of you, and this is what the Journey Tote has become to us.
We took it a step further and designed a collection of travel accessories with this textile. The Journey Tote is a part of the Gypsied Travel Edit. We sat down to design travel accessories that evoked a sense of freedom and ease and lets you focus on the things that matter on the road — the joy and exhilaration of discovering a new place.
