African Style Shirts

HANDMADE WITH LOCALLY SOURCED FABRIC

Our ready-to-wear African print shirts are handmade by tailors in Tanzania using locally sourced, high quality, 100% cotton original fabrics. African wax prints are commonly known as ‘Ankara’ in West Africa and ‘Kitenge’ of ‘Chitenge’ in East Africa. Due to the nature of the fabric, which is nice and thick, the shirts will keep you either cool or warm depending on the climate. They are also incredibly comfortable to wear as the fabric softens after each wash.

All of our shirts feature a useful side pocket and carefully sourced buttons that match the colours in the print. Our highly skilled tailors create the shirts from scratch with great care and attention to detail using the new sewing machines they have purchased using the profits from our orders. As every shirt is individually hand cut and sewn inside our tailors own workshops, each is truly unique and one of a kind as the print placement varies! Our tailors are experts in pattern cutting and you will notice how they have cleverly matched the different parts of the print when sewing the item together.

Once our kitenge prints have been personally selected at the market in Tanzania by our founder, Sian, they are taken to a small, local laundry business where they are pre-washed before being distributed to our tailors. This ensures the fabric has been shrunk thoroughly before being made into an item of clothing so that it stays the same size when washed in your machine at home. It also softens the fabric for the first time making it easier for our tailors to cut and sew.