The Tantalus Silk Kimono is our first piece of outerwear, with the garment itself a nod to Japanese influence in the Pacific Northwest. 

It's named after the Tantalus range of mountains in southern British Columbia, Canada. The mountains are a visual gradient on display; in the spring, they seem to ooze downwards as they shed their winter cover.

Collaborating artist Jamie House recreated this effect via his digitally processed experiments with ceramic and glass paints on paper. He layered the resulting images overtop of each other, creating an artwork that seductively drips down the wearer's back. 

"I dripped the paints vertically to create a coherent motion in the pattern. This big drip was then taken and multiplied at different sizes with slight variations on each repetition to create one big fractal drip where the whole is made up of many tangents on itself. This repetition process is the same process in which a branch or a lightning bolt forms, creating unique copies of itself to simulate the appearance of the 'one'."

Jamie working on chemical paint experiments at Endless Studio in Leeds, UK.

Printed onto luxurious midnight blue medium-weight silk, the Tantalus is soft on the skin. Quite simply, it feels amazing. The silk picks up the gold accents of the artwork, offering a subtle sheen when the fabric is in movement.

Our silk is supplied and printed by Adamley, a heritage silk printer based in the countryside of Macclesfield, England. Macclesfield is known for its craft of hand-printed silk, and Adamley has been printing with these traditional techniques for over 50 years.

Adamley is a GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certified company. All water used in their printing processes is sourced from their own reservoir.

Silk is a natural fabric and biodegradable, though it is worth noting traditional silk production kills silkworms in the process.

Tantalus is manufactured at our local small-batch production studio in East London. They specialize in high-end production, working with many emerging designers and brands in the city. Each kimono is made by hand in-studio by their talented seamstresses and cutters.

You can purchase the small batch Tantalus here.