Weekend Edition

Lucky #13: an ode to the bandana, summer's most versatile accessory

Hi!

My mom just returned from Provence, where she bought me a beautiful lightweight cotton bandana from a brand called Souleiado. In reading about the purveyors of my present, I learned that the company was founded in the 1930s when the original owner purchased a cotton printing workshop, complete with 40,000 wooden print blocks that had been used to print chintz and calico fabrics, known as indiennes, since the 1700s.¹

When I was studying at the University of Virginia (go Hoos!), I wrote my senior thesis on the history of women’s clothing in 19th-century India. Specifically, I was studying how British and Indian fashion, fabric, and design crossed cultural and societal boundaries, not to mention the world.

One could argue (and I tried) that fashion created the British Empire. The East India Company, which came to own and rule large swaths of the world before the British Crown took direct control in 1858, made its fortune on the trade and import of Indian textiles, dyes, and designs (in …