In 2017, after Maya Amoah went on a trip to visit her grandmother in the Aburi Mountains of Ghana’s Eastern Region along the Akuapim-Togo Range, she returned to Montreal with the beginnings of her slow fashion brand Batik Boutik.
Growing up in Canada, she had mostly encountered batik—a dyeing technique using wax resist originating from the island of Java, Indonesia that arrived in West Africa in the mid-19th century through Dutch and British colonial trade routes—on garments worn at family functions or Ghanaian church gatherings. Seeing the fabrics in situ, and as raw material waiting to be transformed into clothing, sparked a creative shift.
“I was just completely enamoured by the vibrant hues and motifs of African wax print I’d see women selling at the markets,” Amoah recalls. “I was inspired to give it my own interpretation by incorporating my heritage, taste, and creative influences of my current environment into the design process.”
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