THE TRIBAL DRUM 

April 2014

It’s hard to believe that the rainy season has nearly finished and we’re welcoming back our production team already! Although there are still some thunderclouds hanging around the Luangwa Valley, our artists have now been back to work for a month and 2014 is looking set to be a great year for Tribal Textiles.

The rainy season is always a great time to reflect on the past year, and what a year 2013 was for us. We launched exciting new products including our stunning 100% cotton adult and kids’ duvet cover sets. Two favourite Tribal Textiles’ designs, Flamboyant Pod and African Circles, were released in our latest colourways Earth and Maasai with both emerging as new top sellers. And in November we photographed our beautiful new design Honeycomb which can now be found on our website www.tribaltextiles.co.zm/new/honeycomb.

Our artists have thrived in the creative atmosphere of the past 12 months, as have the record number of clients who have joined us for Art Safaris. Last but by no means least, we have been thrilled to welcome new stockists from around the world in countries such as Singapore, Kenya and Germany.

Did you know… That wrinkles can be good for you? Elephants are born with their famous wrinkly skins that are essential for keeping cool. The wrinkles boost the surface area of the elephant’s skin and increase the radiation of body heat. After a mud bath, the wet mud trapped between the elephant’s wrinkles continues to cool the elephant long after it leaves the puddle!  So the next time you worry about wrinkles remember the elephant and yours might not look so bad!  

For the beginning of 2014, we’re really excited to introduce you to our seriously talented wood carver Mike Mbewe.

Entirely self-taught, Mike creates breathtaking, life-like animal carvings from memory and the occasional printed picture. Last year we asked him to carve us a rhino which he did with astonishing accuracy despite never having seen one in his life!

Mike’s beautiful carvings have starred in many a photo shoot over the years, with these stunning pieces perfectly complementing the African motifs found in our designs. Watching Mike carve is mesmerising and we hope you love his work as much as we do. 

This year we are also thrilled to be developing new resources for our international and local stockists. We thought it was high time we shared our expertise in all things textile and so we have been busy creating fun and informative presentations and infographics that will be popping up on our SlideShare page in the coming months. Look out for the story of Tribal Textiles from birth to today, top tips on merchandising different spaces and the How To of creating our textiles.

We love feedback too, so if there is something you’d like to know more about, please drop us a line and we’ll see about turning it into a helpful and colourful presentation that will brighten up your day!

In the meantime why not visit us on Pinterest and see what’s inspiring our design team this week!

It’s set to be an exciting few months as our General Manager Kirstie returns with her new daughter, we plan fresh photoshoots to update our website and our staff return from the long Easter weekend.

As always, we would like to thank all our wonderful clients and stockists world-wide for your continued support of this small business in the heart of the African bush!