The Story Behind our Hibiscus Top

Everything has an origin story, including our wonderfully summery Hibiscus Top – and this is a story we want to share.

Hibiscus Top

Everything has an origin story, including our wonderfully summery Hibiscus Top – and this is a story we want to share.

The Hibiscus Top begins like all of our other garments, as an idea in our designer Kate’s mind. Colour stories are developed, and prints designed before garments are created for each fabric story. After countless weeks of designing, fitting, and planning, the ideas are finally ready to come to life.

We get a size 10 sample made in every style that we are offering in the collection and use this for our photoshoot, to produce our website and catalogues and to show our wholesale customers ready for them to place their orders. These samples are then fitted for final approval before the pattern can be graded into all the other sizes in the range.

After this, we engage in numerous discussions with our partners in India, to finalise fit details, production numbers and fabric qualities. Eventually the top is ready for production.

Dyeing and Printing the Fabric

Simply put, rolls of the Cotton Voile fabric are dyed using AZO-FREE dyes, before being dried and taken to the printers to be ‘discharge’ printed. A process where areas of the colour are removed (for the hibiscus flower motifs) before being printed on top of for the smaller details.

Cutting and Sewing

The fabric is stacked up into multiple layers before the pattern is laid on top ready to be cut around. Once the pieces are cut out of the fabric stack, they are then sorted and taken to the tailors for sewing. Usually garments are sewn in a production line so that each tailor is responsible for just a few processes before it moves onto the next person.

Making Tassels

The tassels are made individually by hand which certainly takes some skill! Tassels are a contemporary must-have, which add a pop of character to any garment.

Packing the Tops

Each top is pressed, checked, and folded before having the swing tags and stickers attached. The tops have to go through a quality control process to make sure everything is correct before they are individually packed into a Nomads Non-GMO Corn-starch bag and then boxed ready for shipment.