Grandmothers scrub their skin on bright and tiny plastic stools, spraying themselves down with peach hoses. Hair, puffed in a foam meringue, slinks mercurially into a limp, wet silk under a shower head. This bath house is thick with smeared echoes, ricocheting between tiles, mist, breasts, and soap. Other women soak clustered in a bubbling pool. One wears a damp towel as a hat and another is crying. Friends weave their arms in a flesh braid around her, creating an informal baptism. Other bodies pour themselves elegantly onto sauna stairs; the remove of clothing, now removed, dissipates with the dressing of heat. There is no gaze, just bodies in all of their presence, with age and youth reflecting each other. Interiority is punctuated by the spitting foam of a neighbor's toothbrush, and the utilitarian hosing down of a child with a mother’s gentle rigor of economy. The practical and spiritual are here, present in the same ancient, communal gesture.

The Plisse Shirt is made of a custom-printed, smocked cotton, inspired by a vintage children's dress, and edged with a scalloped elastic around the neck and sleeves. Shirts are crafted on a made-to-order basis. Once purchased, please allow four weeks for construction and shipping.