The Making of the Safari Collection
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Under the shade of baobab trees. Decked in khaki. Navigating bumpy dirt roads from the safety of the Land Rover.
Welcome to the Savanna.
I’d never washed so much dust off my Chacos before my first trip overseas. Being handed my ticket to Lusaka, Zambia felt like one of the bravest things I’d been a part of. I was 19 and the youngest on the trip. Others had traveled and seen pieces of the world but that had never been something I wanted until recently. So, I joined the longest flight I’d ever taken. The discomfort continued throughout the whole trip- a drastic shift from my very normal life on the East Coast of the U.S.
Nothing was familiar. Not the fact that it was winter in July or that we stayed in a guarded compound and walked a mile on rust-colored roads towards the NGO every morning. Not the way bananas were sold in fruit stands on the side of the road or how the electricity would flicker off from power cuts every night around 7:30p.
We ate the same food every single day- nshima (a sticky maize paste) with steamed pumpkin leaves and chicken that was…freshly prepared. Every day at lunch I considered becoming a vegetarian.
It was a trip of many firsts. The first time I had ever been a minority. The first time a baby cried, frightened, when they saw me because I looked different. The first time I’d seen women at the NGO beautifully dance and sing with more abandon than I’d ever experienced in the States. The first time I sat in on a health seminar by my nurse friend who taught that AIDS couldn’t be contracted by touching someone, which changed the dynamics of that community.
After those two weeks, I got off the plane in Atlanta and went back to my life at university. I wasn’t magically a different person. But those two weeks out of context changed me.
I had salvaged water. Eaten crickets. I had bartered at markets and navigated power outages, taking every cue from my friend Amy who walked through each giant unknown with gumption. She didn’t have things figured out, she said. So, I’d pretended to be brave, following her lead.
The way I briefly experienced a different way of life shifted how I saw the world. But I'll get into that more below.
For now...
On Safari Collection: In a Nutshell
On Safari is a hand-drawn pattern collection inspired by the feeling of a morning safari in Zambia (the first country I visited outside of North America). Think: happy giraffes, land rovers under baobab trees, and the playful textures of African mudcloth.
Every pattern is a nod to Zambia’s stories and beauty, so anyone can be part of the adventure- with or without a passport. Whatever you’re creating, On Safari invites you to slow travel and sunrise adventures on the Zambian red dirt roads.
Choosing the Color Story
I wanted On Safari to have the warmth of the savannah, with a little bit of refreshment. So sunny yellows, dirt-road reds, and sands form the majority of these patterns. Sage is woven in to represent the African flora.
Design Themes Woven into "On Safari"
Camp, mudcloth, and safari animals inspired the design themes for this collection. You'll see these elements woven into most of the patterns. I've always been drawn to mudcloth textiles and wanted this to be represented in a playful way. Giraffes, elephants, and rhinos take center stage as the animals- perfect for licensing on kids clothes. And of course, I had to go with camp vibes for the "Campsite Stories" pattern inspired by a camp shirt, as well as for the Land Rover-inspired sage green pattern (my personal favorite)!
Pattern Spotlight: The Savanna
The Savanna Pattern is a warm, earthy tribute to the magic of early mornings on safari. Featuring hand-drawn animals roaming the savanna’s flora, this design captures the quiet strength and beauty of Zambia’s wildlife and plants.
Back to the Roots
This collection was inspired by my first trip out of North America: Zambia circa 2012. Like I mentioned, I didn't get off the plane a totally different person. But it did change me. It made me question why I wasn’t as joyful as the women I met in the Lusaka compound. It made me grateful that I had power when I was annoyed about wifi going out. It made me braver when I thought about the trials my Zambian friends had navigated in comparison to the trials of my daily life. It caused me to wrestle with American consumerism and think twice about spending my money on things I didn’t need. It made me want to try more foods, and learn to ask more questions. I didn’t know it at the time, but that trip was a catalyst and my dusty chacos would cross oceans many more times in the future- including carrying me on a one-way ticket overseas.
Our steps into the unfamiliar shape how we see life. They cultivate kinship with people different from us. They help us realize how small we are in a big world and that many people are running the race differently and beautifully. When we take up residence in familiarity, it’s easy to think the rest of the world thinks like us- or should. We become right in our own eyes and fear things, and people, we don’t understand.
Spending time in different contexts helps us be grateful for what we have and curious about what we learn from others. You may not even leave the country (although I hope you get the opportunity to). I’ve learned significantly from sitting in the homes of South Sudanese refugees in North Carolina. Or sharing meals with friends who are first-generation Americans. Or feeling lost in Asian supermarkets trying to find ingredients for an unfamiliar recipe.
Whether for a few hours or a few days a year, seek out the opportunity to be out of context. Search for it. Curiosity breeds empathy. Sometimes, it’s good to be the ones who are uncomfortable in order to understand other people. In order to appreciate what you have, and realize sometimes things are not necessarily weird, they’re just different.
There is something to be discovered, something to be transformed in us, in the unknown.
That's the heart behind the On Safari collection.
Bring your next idea to life with the Safari Collection!
Patterns from the "On Safari" collection are available to license! Perfect for kids clothes, tissue/wrapping paper, and more, if you're feeling inspired by the wonder of the savannah.
Contact me for pricing and licensing details!
