Apron: Les Sardines

Varek Illustrations Aprons are made by hand, in France, in a Provençal workshop. It is the perfect combination of artisanal know-how and passion for painting.

Printed on the cotton knit, it is the perfect ally for all your culinary preparations that smell like the sea air.

• 100% Oeko-Tex certified cotton.
• Four-color printing.
• Made and printed in France.
• Machine washable at 30°

The illustration is a reproduction of a mackerel painted in acrylic by Roméo, painter & fisherman.

Varek is their spelling of varech - the French word for the kelp that lines the Atlantic coast. Côme and Roméo grew up on Île de Ré, where the tides taught them where to step and where not to. They were children there before they were fishermen, and fishermen before they were painters.

From a studio in Bordeaux, the brothers have set themselves a single, unhurried task: to paint every fish and every shellfish they encounter - on the line, underwater, on their travels. Each work is acrylic on canvas, hand-painted, one species at a time. Dicentrarchus labrax. Thunnus thynnus. Palaemon serratus. The scientific name is set down beside the painted body, the way a fisherman might lay his catch beside its label.

The originals are reproduced as posters on eco-responsible art paper, and translated onto linens, aprons, trays, and tin gift boxes - printed and made in France wherever possible, otherwise within Europe. Varek is an entreprise adaptée: every order is fulfilled by fishermen who can no longer work the boats. The catalogue grows at the rate of the catch.

Machine wash at 60°C

Like all cotton tea towels, soak it in cold water for a few hours before the first wash - the cotton needs that to find its absorbency. After that, it works.