The Raw Materials

Tamay and Me garments are woven from authenticity, tradition, and cultural heritage as much as they are made of physical materials – 100% cotton to be precise. The garment’s stories begin in the foothills of Northern Vietnam. Here, cotton is grown by local communities, without chemical inputs or pesticides. Agriculture provides the foundation for local life and identity. Livelihoods are shaped around planting and harvesting cycles and seasonal variations in land use. 

In Tan village, the whole year revolves around the cotton, indigo and rice harvests. Cotton seeds are sewn in spring, and handpicked in July, then stored until the dry season (from March), when it is beaten and prepared for spinning in September. The process is slow due to its dependency on weather, climate, and seasonal breaks in the wet weather as cotton can only be worked with when the air is dry enough. Equally, the cotton can only be worked on once the rice has been harvested and stored away. From the beginning of November till late February, the cotton is spun into cloth ready to be dyed. Tamay herself travels 3 hours in each direction by motorcycle to buy the cloth directly from the communities which produced it, ensuring not only that materials sourced are authentically and traditionally produced, but that the communities which produce them receive equal and fair revenue for their work.  

 In recent decades, authentic Vietnamese cotton has become much harder to acquire within Vietnam's textile markets, as cheaper, machine-made imported cotton from places such as China is favoured. However, the use of Vietnamese cotton is fundamental to the production of Tamay & Me products. The cotton we use is produced in the traditional way - hand-spun and hand-woven by communities that still practice long-established cultural methods of production. Whilst not necessarily as uniform as machine produced cloth, traditional, heritage Vietnamese cotton has other more authentic and valuable qualities. It links our garments to a way of living that has been practiced for generations.