This heirloom cloth is one of the rarest, most sought after forms of African weaving

Tubular Oblique Interlacing – it sounds like a phrase from a medical textbook, but it’s really the name of the weaving technique used by the Dida People in West Africa’s Ivory Coast. There, Dida women deftly braid raffia palm tree fibers into seamless tubular skirts without the aid of a loom. Imagine weaving a cloth cylinder with no seams from the top up or the bottom down. It’s so difficult, complex and time consuming that today, for all practical purposes it is an extinct art form.

Ceremonial Skirt from the Dida people of the Ivory Coast, West Africa

This week’s New Arrival features a tubular interlaced ceremonial skirt, but no one calls it by its formal name. Instead, it’s commonly called an “heirloom cloth.” It is one of the rarest, most sought after forms of African weaving. The Dida considered it a luxurious symbol of high status, a prized possession meant to be handed down from one generation to the next. It's the same view held by modern day collectors.

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