Beach Bags

HANDMADE BASKETS

Handwoven with natural, sustainable palm and grasses. Eco-friendly and hard working with leather or palm handles. Our classic baskets will last for years and can be used for shopping, picnics, beach trips or storage around the home.  Once you've used one, you'll only want more!

The work is done by a number of small family groups - no work takes place in factories - and all are paid a fair wage.  

The items are from Madagascar and made from the native raffia palm tree that grows in the tropical rainforests.  The tree has a short trunk which is used in house building if the entire tree needs to be cut down.  However the branches can grow up to 18m long, so are usually cut leaving the tree to continue growing.  Each branch is made of roughly 100 smaller fronds and the leaves are peeled before being dried in the sunshine. They are then cut into thin strips and washed to flatten the strips before being dyed in large pots over open fires.  The raffia is then laid out in the sunshine to dry.

Weaving is done in homes on a hand loom - roughly 250g of raffia is used to make a 180cm x 62cm panel and takes a day to weave.  This can only be done during daylight as none of the homes have electricity - or running water.  

NB:  They can cope with a bit of light rain/damp and need to be thoroughly dried after but we wouldn’t trust them in a real downpour as the dye would run.  The colours will fade in time.