Zanzibar is screen printed by hand onto a cotton and hemp ground, a technique that gives the pattern its slightly irregular, human edge — each colour laid down in its own pass, eight of them in all. The hemp lends the cloth weight and a faint slub, so the print sits on a surface with character rather than a flat field, and a straight repeat keeps the drawing orderly across the width. Professional cleaning only, as hand-printed cloths of this kind require.
