Starter Kit. Idea 51 of 500. Cluster 3
Limited-edition scarves using site artwork
The mechanism, from the book
The Zermatt water bottle. Sigiriya has not got a stone with its own name on it.
The first step
Work with one artist to turn a motif from a heritage site into a scarf design, and have 10 printed by a small textile printer. Wear one yourself for a week and note who asks about it, then offer the rest to a boutique hotel shop and a museum shop on sale or return. Scarves sold and a reorder are the proof.
- Who pays first
- Hotel and museum shops that want a premium, light souvenir, and visitors who want to wear the place home.
- What leaves today
- Heritage artwork earns nothing when it is copied elsewhere; a limited scarf sells it at a premium and keeps the design local.
Ask first
- Central Cultural Fund. Ask whether artwork from their sites can be licensed for scarves, and how.
- National Crafts Council. Ask which weavers or printers could produce a short run of scarves.
Check before you spend
Who owns the right to the artwork, what the licence allows, and that the cloth and dyes are good enough to justify the price.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a visitor pay for a numbered scarf?
- How many scarves make a sensible first run?
- What does printing or weaving one scarf cost?
A comparison from the book
Zermatt. Chapter Five
"here will carry the name of here."
Everything produced here should carry the name of here, scarves included.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.