The cloth
Bogolanfini begins as hand-woven cotton strip cloth, joined selvedge to selvedge before it ever meets the dye. It is dyed with a wolo bark tannin with iron-rich mud drawn from the Niger banks — the pattern is not printed on, it is drawn in mud and then the ground around it is lifted away. On this piece the mudcloth meets mid-weight black technical cotton with a dry matte surface, black-and-gold bogolan mudcloth strap and side-panel trim, tonal topstitching, discreet gold-tone z hardware at the strap join.