Our Products
OUR TEXTILES
Our textiles are hand picked especially for you from the local fabrics market in Malawi, we work with a local cooperative of women traders
to source the most exclusive prints and they only enough to produce a very limited number of pieces.
When you buy a Mayamiko piece, you buy one of the only 10-15 pieces ever made in our exclusive fabric. Unique through and through.
This also means that as fabrics are often artisanal and hand made, fabric and colour imperfection are possible and they add to the uniqueness
of the pieces, rather than representing a defect or fault.
In case you were wondering, many pieces in our collections is dedicated to wonderful woman in the life of Mayamiko: our trainees, tailors, market traders,
inspirations, supporters, friends and family. Many Chichewa names have beautiful meanings. For example Chifundo means mercy.
ZERO WASTE
Our collections are produced in our workshop, which is a Zero Waste environment. This means we upcycle every off-cut, cutting room waste fabric
or any unsold item into a new wonderful piece for you to enjoy.
We focus on efficient garment design and pattern cutting techniques, aiming to use 90-100% of the fabric when cutting.
We also donate some our fabric to the community, and hold workshops to teach each others clever ways of upcycling even the smallest piece of our
beautiful fabrics: we have created colourful and unique doormats, mops, accessories and even sanitary pads.
The African print details and trims embody our ZeroWaste policy and upcycle cutting room excess from our main collections.
HAND DYED FABRICS AND BATIKS
Our gorgeous batik and tie-dye fabrics are hand-dyed by talented artisans at the Malawi Council for the Handicapped (MaCoHa),
which employees and trains wonderful humans, differently abled. We pay MaCoHa
a fair price for the artisans' work and love working together on new and creative designs!
THE NAMASTE COLLECTION
The Mayamiko Namaste Collection is a mini yoga inspired range of clothing and accessories to give your Om an extra touch of colour and joy with our African fabrics.
The range of clothing and accessories is not produced using technical textiles, but our local woven cotton, so it best enjoyed when relaxing, lounging and doing light exercise.
The tshirt included in the Namaste sets is made of 100% GOTS® certified organic combed cotton. It is also produced in Africa by ethical and fairtrade manufacturer Mantis World.
NATURAL SOAPS
We source our natural soaps from Chiyambi, where they are lovingly hand-made in Malawi using locally sourced ingredients.The soaps are produced near Dzaleka Refugee Camp. The beautiful African textile packaging is made up by refugees and Malawians with disabilities, or supporting disabled family members. All profits re-invested in community development. Mayamiko pays Chiyambi a fair price for each piece.
MADE IN SRI LANKA
We have been working with a social empowerment project in Sri Lanka called Booteek, supporting disadvantaged women artisans: it started years ago as a workshop in needlework
for students at the Chitra Lane School for the Special Child. Today, it is a collective of their mothers and other women from disadvantaged backgrounds.
For most of the women, the project is their sole source of income. Some of them are able to involve their adult children, who have special needs, into a part of the process
of making the product. For example, the cross stitch component of the bags you can buy at Mayamiko that one of the artisans, Upasili, makes is done by her son, Nalaka.
The women artisan work out of their homes, giving them the flexibility to work at their own pace. This autonomy empowers them and makes them self-motivated. The process of creating
something beautiful facilitates a parallel inner transformation.
They tell us: "We have witnessed the women blossoming and becoming more confident as they continue to produce products of better and better quality”
Mayamiko has designed and developed some new exciting products such as embroidered clutch bags and the body bags. They are made of 100% local silk and hand embroidered.
ARTISANAL SCARVES MADE IN MYANMAR
During a sourcing trip, we discovered some incredibly delicate and precious scarves, hand dyed and hand woven in Myanmar by the Kayan Lahwi women, also known as Padaung, a sub-group of Red Karen (Karenni) people.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s many Kayan tribes fled to the Thai border area and settled in refugee camps. The Kayan Lahwi women dye and weave beautifully rich textiles, often crafted into scarves or cloth, as one of their main income generating activities. The process is highly skilful and elaborate, and the result is so luxurious and unique. In the future we hope to bring you more of their exquisite work, as we keep supporting the development and empowerment of their communities.
OUR PROMISE
- Each piece is lovingly washed, cut and sewn in our ethical, ZeroWaste workshop in Malawi
- Read more about our ethical commitment to our employees, artisans and to the communities we work in.
- We also work with other artisan groups around the world to bring you the best artisan products we can find, and we always ensure that their ethics are strong and transparent
- Buy a Mayamiko piece and join the #FashionRevolution
MAYAMIKO TRUST: OUR COMMITMENT TO THE LOCAL COMMUNITY
- In addition to our Ethical Promise, part of our profits go directly to Mayamiko Trust - a charity working in the community to train and empower disadvantaged women
- Meet the Mayamikans
- Find out how you can help further