A shirt with a story

This blogpost is also available in German / auf Deutsch. Disclaimer: I was not paid for this blogpost! The top is a PR sample, so to speak, but not really. I would say 50/50. I’m gonna explain in the blogpost what I mean exactly!

Lately world trip reminiscing is pretty strong for me!!! I am rethinking all of our memories and adventures a lot in the last months. Somehow, I still haven’t processed our six months of traveling enough. Back in the days we probably would have just created a typical photo album from our analogue film rolls. But nowadays too often our photos are just stored digitally on some hard drive…including our adventure around the world! However, I am determined that I am not gonna let them “rot” on some sort of hard drive our digital cloud but rather create something even though it’s been a year now that we have finished our world trip.

What’s nice though is that we actually have a lot of souvenirs from our trip that remind us of all the great places my fiancé and I got to experience! And I would like to introduce to you a very special souvenir today. It’s actually not a souvenir. But let’s start from the beginning:

A year and a half ago, Jan of the ethical shop Kokoworld wrote to me whether we would like to start a small project together as part of my trip around the world. His idea: I buy a beautiful fabric on our trip and the team of Kokoworld sews a very special piece from it, completely customized for me! I’ve been looking everywhere for the perfect fabric, which is actually pretty easy in Asia, frankly. But I wanted something special, something with a story!!

In February 2017, Jesse and I were traveling Cambodia, including the city of Kampot, which we reached by land from Vietnam (more about our adventures in Kampot, including new friendships, strange national park and more here!). I loved the city! At first I thought that there is not so much to do. But the many hostels, the crazy national park and the great, lovely people there made our stay there very eventful! One day we were just out for a walk and by chance I stumbled upon an amazing vintage store. This shop was just the dream for every vintage lover! Old ceramics, old furniture, second-hand clothes and accessories that I would never find in Berlin or let alone in Europe! And in between all those cute stuff I found this great, yellow fabric, with this tiny, cute print: 

After thinking a bit of back and forth about it, I bought it. I didn’t buy it right away, because as a backpacker I only had one backpack with me and couldn’t carry around too much. But eventually, the material came with me and thus on a further journey from Cambodia over Thailand, Japan, Costa Rica, Panama and Cuba back to Germany!

Back home I needed some more time for myself but after that I sent the fabric to Jan in Poland. He and his team were quick to find a suitable cut for the amount of fabric and in the summer of 2017, the pretty piece was finished. Why am I showing it only now, a year later? Last summer was a very emotional period for me. I’ve taken the big step into self-employment and devoted myself full-time to my blogger business. Typically a lot of fears and doubts were added and I worked incredibly much until December, could rarely say no to projects, was busy traveling again with my trips to Lungau, Hamburg (for the Re:Blog conference), to Serbia to my family, to Vienna to visit Justine and in the holiday with Jesse to Morocco. That’s why some projects have simply fallen down the back and so unfortunately, I must confess, also this beautiful shirt and its story!

But better late than never and therefore it’s a rarity on the blog: I am showing show you a garment that I LOVE, but that you can’t buy … so advertising without consumer incentive, I guess? Haha 🙂 Thank you again to Kokoworld for this amazing project and experience!

Do you have pieces in your wardrobe that have a special story? For me, it’s almost always Second Hand pieces. Share your stories! Did you find something special while traveling? Or sewn or self-sewn? I am looking forward to your stories 🙂