HEMP & LEATHER TOTE

50cm x 45cm x 10cm  /  Cotton inner lining /  Leather strap /  Inner pocket

Made from a beautiful antique hand-woven hemp grain sack uniquely dyed from Europe, the textile dates from the early 1900s. These fabrics originate from grain sacks that were produced over 100 years ago on European farms.

Each grain sack was handwoven from hemp and decorated with a distinctive pattern of stripes and a few with hand-stitched monograms, in order to show which farm it belonged to.

(These unique family markings were used so that the farmers were able to identify their sacks filled with grain at the markets. This also made it easier to return the empty sacks back to the rightful owner after the market.)

These textiles are by nature extremely eco-friendly as they were naturally made from homegrown materials, home retted (in local lakes and ponds), and woven together by hand. The average age of these textiles is around 100 years old woven with linen, hemp, cotton, or a combination of the three.  

What we do at GOVOU is to reinterpret the use of these fabrics.