“Dance is the hidden language of the soul”
― Martha Graham
For the final design deep dive of this season, we're looking at another design relating to movement, but this time with a little more rhythm...
At Idioma HQ we often talk about the concept of freedom. Freedom in language, freedom in travel and freedom in creation. But in the moment freedom is epitomised by moving to music. Letting inhibitions go on the dancefloor, kitchen or living room (with or without the help a couple of beers) is a freeing part of the human experience. It's a natural human instinct to move to a beat or rhythm, something innate in our DNA, but sometimes a self consciousness can get in the way. However, when feet start tapping and shapes are made the magic really happens.
Mbuki Mvuki is an idiom from the Bantu people of Africa, literally meaning "to shake off your clothes to dance more freely". It's that moment that you've let go and committed to the movement. Clothes slow you down, they make you too hot, so the only thing for it is to take some off. How many that come off, we'll leave to you...
It is thought that "Boogie Woogie" originates from Mbuki Mvuki, changing into the Americanism it is today. If things had turned out differently maybe Boogie Nights would have a very different name.
“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Seth, Designer for Idioma, was inspired by a book on African pattern when he stumbled upon the word Mbuki Mvuki. The way Bantu artists illustrate the movement of simple figures inspired the motion within the design.
When illustrating, the essence of the word was not coming through so the design moved mediums:
"I was drawing again and again the same shapes and getting a little frustrated with the permanent line of my pen, it just wasn’t going in the right direction. I wanted to free things up a little and so I started making shapes, cutting them out of paper. A cutout was made for each shape, they were put together and the design came into focus."
A mix of colour and motion was finalised as the final design and is what you see today. Hopefully we can all bring a little Mbuki Mvuki into our lives on a more regular basis!
Mbuki Mvuki is available as a unisex t-shirt, a cropped t-shirt & a unisex sweatshirt.
See all of Idioma's Summer '18 releases here.
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