A kikoi is more than just a cloth. Worn, wrapped, or draped, or spread, it’s a versatile garment that makes the ultimate travel companion or trans seasonal wardrobe staple.

The beauty of the kikoi lies in its multi-functionality. Whether used as a sarong, scarf, lightweight throw, beach wrap or baby sling, it’s a staple for travel and everyday life. With a durable weave that makes it a cherished companion for years to come.

Breezy and beach-bag ready, the simple (but mighty) kikoi carries with it the spirit of a sun-soaked coastline, or unhurried days on holiday.

The Story Behind the Kikoi

The kikoi, a rectangular piece of woven cloth, holds a rich history rooted in East Africa, particularly along the Swahili coast. Originally introduced by Arab traders centuries ago, the kikoi quickly evolved into a cultural icon, loved for both its vibrant patterns and practical use. Traditionally used as sarongs, kikois also serve a variety of purposes, including shawls, scarves, head wraps or throws.

Kikois, a versatile travel companion

Lightweight and quick-drying, the kikoi is a versatile companion for days on the go, and summer holiday adventuring – easily stashed in your beach tote or hiking backpack, transitioning from a quick-drying beach towel to a scarf or wrap when the sun dips. Sprawl it out over grass as a picnic blanket, wrap up your souvenirs in your travel case, or convert it into a baby sling if you’ve got a little one in tow.

It’s the year-round, well-loved companion for any adventure – one that makes the ultimate gift for any friend or family member.

GOTS-Certified Organic Cotton

The Organic Ruti Kikoi is woven from GOTS-certified organic cotton. The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is a globally recognised certification that ensures that the cotton is grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers – safeguarding soil health, water quality, and biodiversity. It also upholds ethical labour standards, ensuring fair treatment of farmers and workers throughout the supply chain.

This naturally cultivated cotton results in a fabric that’s gentle on the skin, soft to the touch and breathable for year-round use.

Woven on Traditional Shuttle Looms

Our Organic Ruti Kikois are woven at our mill in Plettenberg Bay on our mid-century Ruti looms. 

One of the distinguishing features of the Ruti loom is its shuttle – a wooden bobbin inside which rests the yarn-carrying pirn. The shuttle, which flies back and forth across the warp (or vertical threads), has the unique ability to produce a true selvedge. This tightly woven, self-finished edge, which runs the length of the woven cloth, requires no extra hemming, and is a hallmark of traditional shuttle loom weaving. You’ll find the selvedge on our Lancashire loom products – our Summer Towels, and baby blankets – as well as our Linen Scarves. Look out for it as a sign of artisanal, small-batch textile weaving.

Traditional Weaving, Timeless Design

Our Ruti looms form a key piece in our story of textile making through the ages (at the Mungo Mill you’ll find a display of weaving techniques and technology right back from prehistoric times to present day). 

Our Rutis, thought to date around 1960, are semi-automatic pirn-change looms. These looms, at one time the height of weaving technology, stop when the shuttle runs out of thread. This intelligent feature revolutionise the industry, improving efficiency, and allowing a single weaver to operate multiple looms at once. 

At our mill, you’ll find two Rutis in operation. Pay a visit and see them in action – our mill doors are always open for visitors.

More from our blog:

Getting the GOTS | This one’s for you, Earth | The 2024 Kids of Kurland Kikoi

Summer in Plettenberg Bay is renowned. A time of year that sees tens of thousands of locals and holidaymakers alike flock to the town’s pristine Blue Flag beaches to make the most of the sun and surf. But whilst many of us are enjoying the waters or working on our tans, there are those who are hard at work: the lifeguards. Over 60 of whom keep vigil over 13 beaches in the area, right from Nature’s Valley to the Robberg peninsula.

Above and beyond safeguarding our seas, the Lifeguard Programme supports a proactive skill development initiative in Plettenberg Bay. Training and upskilling youths from local communities with valuable skills that set them up for future success.

“We have about 15 kids who come through the programme each year. Some of these kids might take 2-3 years to pass through the necessary training – others a year. So on average that’s about 10 kids every year. A very small fraction of these kids come from affluent communities. They are predominantly from disadvantaged backgrounds,” says Lifeguard Instructor and Examiner, Chas Fraser.

The programme is rigorous, and requires a strong level of commitment. Not to mention peak physicality, strong aquatic skills, effective teamwork and open communication. Constant vigilance is key, as the guards must consistently monitor both the water conditions, and swimmer capability. Those who persevere are led through a comprehensive program of personal and professional development, acquiring skills that open up a world of career options.

“This profession has to have real working skills. You have to be on time, you can’t bunk work, you have to have a lot of discipline. We’ve seen these kids get jobs on cruise ships, in fire and rescue, become paramedics… It’s a stepping stone to earn income and to move onto other careers.”

In support of the programme, and as a gesture of appreciation for the boys and girls in red and yellow, over the last few years we’ve been weaving a special run of our Itawuli – a pure cotton towel that has been a signature of the Mungo range for close to a decade. Keeping the towel’s iconic geometric design, we’ve switched up the colours – an all-red towel with a yellow stripe to reflect the occasion.

“The Mungo towels were among the most cherished sponsorships we’ve received for the individual guards. They love them and have kept them warm, dry and protected from the wind. They are durable, attractive and practical and the squad would like me to thank you for this. External support of the programmes has become a cornerstone in its ability to carry on developing and keeping a highly professional labour force and to direct more funds to our highly successful, disadvantaged community development training. Lifesaving is the catalyst of the programme. But at the end of the day, the real life saving is saving these kids lives; giving them opportunities.”

Since the hand over, we’ve had many customers and beach-goers ask us where they can get their hands on one of these towels. Whilst this red and yellow beauty isn’t part of our current range, you can still shop one of our Itawuli colourways here. And if you spot one on the beach, we’d love to see – tag us at @mungodesign

Shop the In Range Mungo Itawuli

Blue Moon

Cango Grey

Emerald Green

There’s a kind of magic in an early morning swim…
To dip into the salty sea before the day begins
Before office hours and computers and well-worded emails
To refresh. To revive.
To connect more – to the sea. To ourselves. And to each other…

It was from this idea that the first Mungo Swim Club was born.

Swim Club 2021

We launched the Mungo Swim Club in 2021 – a 5-day challenge with the idea to help us all feel good, and give back something whilst doing so.

We sent a newsletter on a Thursday afternoon at the end of November. Made nervous jokes about whether anyone would join us. 12 was one guess. ’15 people?’ was Tessa’s. And in the morning we came into the office with a full mailbox – and an incredibly enthusiastic response.

In the end, 231 swimmers completed this first challenge – meeting us every morning for a sunrise dip at Hobie Beach, Clifton and Dalebrook. Through Swim Club 1.0 we awarded 231 swimmers a Mungo towel, and sponsored 231 Surf Therapy lessons with Waves for Change.

Waves for Changes is a registered South African NPO who work with youths from stressed environments to develop a community-based, child-friendly mental health service through Surf Therapy.

Swim Club 2022

With our newly launched European site, based in Northern Ireland, in 2022 year we thought to take our Swim Club to foreign shores… In October 2022, we held a Swim Club in the Lake District – a five-day cold water challenge, hosted by Monique Rodgers. 15 swimmers completed the five days, and on their behalf we sponsored 15 Rivers Guardians workshops with I AM WATER foundation.

Two months later we launched our second South African Swim Club. Again the popularity took us by surprise – with over 300 people registering within the first two hours. We hosted 3 pods at Hobie Beach, Clifton 4th and Water’s Edge from the 5th to the 9th of December. We had 292 swimmers complete the challenge. For every person to stick it out, we donated R100 towards an I AM WATER foundation River Guardians workshop. By the end of the week, we were pleased to hand over R29,200 to I AM WATER.

2022’s Swim Club had an incredible response – and so for all those who missed out, we decided to open two more pods to round out the year – one in Knysna, and another in Plett. With 164 swimmers in 2022, we were able to raise an extra R16,400 for I AM WATER.

Clifton 4th images supplied by Angus Mackenzie and Tremayne Ward-Smith.

Swim Club 2023

This year we expanded our Swim Club across 5 locations in Cape Town, Plettenberg Bay and Knysna.

655 swimmers swimmers joined us this year helping us to to collectively raise our biggest sum yet – over R100,000 for I AM WATER foundation.⁠

A shout-out to all those who joined us to swim rain or shine, to our ambassadors who were there to register the swimmers, and to the Plett lifeguards.⁠

⁠Swim Club 2023 images supplied by Matt Lennon.

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I AM WATER

This year’s Swim Club beneficiary is I AM WATER foundation, for their incredible work using environmental education as a tool to inspire the next generation of conservationists. They work with under-resourced coastal communities who, despite their proximity to the shoreline, have often never explored the world beneath the waves. Those who have opened their eyes underwater, those who have seen the beauty, the majesty, and the great marine creatures of this world, will learn to love and to protect it.

The classic ‘check’ is as age-old as weaving itself.

From tartan and houndstooth, to gingham and plaid, it’s a pattern that’s spanned centuries – found in ancient tombs, featured in surrealist art, travelled through New York on taxis, walked the streets on Vans most iconic shoe and gained prominence in retro interior design in the 1970s.

You might even be calling to mind that instantly recognisable board game known the world over. Or for the Millennial generation, the iconic Clueless outfit that brought the check into modern fashion consciousness.

In 2021, it swept across runways and through households as the year’s most popular pattern, bringing with it a wave of nostalgic heritage.

And over the years, we too have seen the check make its way into the Mungo design room.

First into our kitchens with the playful Vadoek dishcloth. And then into our homes (and hearts) with the Vrou Vrou; a blanket that’s continued to brighten rooms around the globe since it first hit the shelves.

We’ve seen it bedeck our tables with the launch of our bright and breezy Crags Check Tablecloth; our ode to alfresco lunches and that ‘country kitchen’ feeling. It found a more abstract expression into the graphic design of our Skipping Block Cushion Covers. And it’s been our trusty travel companion on hikes and spontaneous days at the beach with the roll-up-and-go Mungo Picnic Blanket.

But that’s not the only place we’ve found this iconic design.

In fact it’s been a subtle addition to one of our best-loved towels, the Willow Weave.

A classic on our flat-weave range since the early days of Mungo, this Stu Holding original is based off a traditional weaving pattern that has been used in toweling long before the mass production of the terry cloth.

As one of his earliest towel designs, the Willow Weave was initially woven in Stu’s ‘Working Weaving Museum’ on one of his original Lancashire looms – 19th-century era shuttle looms that originally would have been powered by steam or water, and at one time were the mainstay of the industry. It was inside this small studio, in what is now Mungo’s pressing department, that Stu had a weaving workshop – a place where passersby could catch a spy of the Master at hand.

Today however, our Willow Weave Towels have moved from the 150-year old Lancashires to our more modern Dornier machines. Circa 1970, our Dorniers operate by means of a rapier, as opposed to the pirn-carrying shuttles of the Lancashire.

At the end of 2021, we took the classic Willow and gave it a contemporary spin. Accentuating its characteristic checkerboard weave by changing the colours of the warp and weft.

First on our shelves in December 2021, the first batch of Willow Beach Towels sold out in just a few weeks.

Perhaps a testament to the enduring power of the check… Or maybe just the striking play of colours.

Either way, with a second run off our looms, you’ll find the Willow Beach back in stock.

A towel to evoke that summer feeling? Check.

Brilliantly coloured and generously sized, the Folly Beach Towel has been a favourite in our range since it’s launch in 2019. Since then we’ve been pleased to see it gracing beaches and homes around the globe.

Now introducing the Folly Beach Towel in Hermit Crab. Pulling a punch with purples, greens and orange hues.

So how did it all come about? We had a chat with our designer, Lenore.

Let’s start with your design process – where does it all begin?

My starting point for a new product is the weave construction. This is what gives a textile it’s functionality – absorbency, durability etc. Once I have a construction in mind, I will draw it on graph paper. Then we’ll do a bit of internal testing – with members of the Mungo team taking home the product to try out it’s feel and function. When it comes to colour selection, I’ll need to think about making the weave work well with the colours – that’s what will really give it’s visual appeal. So I’ll start with simulations on our CAD program, which help me play around with our yarn colours. Then I’ll present the initial designs to the team, and we’ll narrow it down to a selection for sampling. I like to stand by the loom when the colour samples are weaving, because it gives me new inspiration – changing and playing with colour combinations I hadn’t thought of. When all the samples are done, we’ll select our favourites – this might be internally or sometimes we’ll put it to our customers/followers to get feedback on their favourites!

How did you develop that graphic, block design so iconic of the Folly?

In weaving, a check fabric is created by having an equal number of warp and weft threads in the design. The idea is to create a repeating pattern that leaves you with a symmetrical cloth. But I wanted to design a multicolour fabric without using a check. So the warp stripes are in fact different from the weft. The weft colours are also stronger in tone, which gives it that bold, graphic feel.

And the fishscale?

When I design new products I try and be mindful of ways to keep what we call a ‘common warp’ – where we try to keep new designs on the same set up and machines. It refines the process, so that we can weave more products on one machine. I had a look at the graphic scaling on the Tawulo Towel – which has a bold zig-zagging pattern. I used this as a starting point, but built on it to create something more striking and graphic.

Rumour has it there’s something to the ‘Folly’ name…

The first-ever warp for the Vrou Vrou Blanket was done incorrectly. The number of warp threads were far too little, and there was 400m already warped. I had to think quickly – how were we going to use this faulty warp? At that time we’d didn’t have a multi-colour towel on the range. So this was an opportunity to create something new. You can say the Folly is the offspring of the Vrou.

Thoughts on the final result?

The Folly is designed to be playful – it will always have an array of bright colours. For the Hermit I went for more earthy tones, but added in some emerald green to give it that pop! I love the finished look. The Hermit keeps its playful tones but adds something a bit more cooled down and contemporary.

So that’s it. A must-have for summer. Or a mood-booster in winter. Something for the beach or something to brighten your bathroom. Whatever floats your folly boat.

Old habits die hard. That’s why we understand those of you who have yet to cotton on to the flat weave towel revolution. But we can give you a gentle nudge in the right direction, and these ‘best things about flat weave towels’ might just be the prod you needed.

If you’re new to the game, you might be wondering what a flat weave towel is in the first place. Unlike a terry towel that is always woven with the same looped pile fabric, using a flat weave allows Mungo to create many different weave designs and structures, resulting in a feast of visual possibilities. Here’s why we swear by them.

1. Highly Absorbent

Rumour has it that towels are the leading cause of dry skin. Okay but seriously, the careful weave of this towel makes it ultra absorbent. Whether you’re fresh out of the bath or beach, or scrambling to dry your little one, a flat weave towel will do the job in a jiffy.

2. Quick-drying

Nothing worse than returning from a beach or camping adventure with the musky scent of a wet towel. Or drying up on a hand towel that’s been used one too many times. A flat weave towel is super light, so it’ll dry in no time.

3. Water Saver

Due to the lightweight nature of a flat weave towel, there’s less bulk for your washing load. In fact, we put it to the test. Pitted against the standard terry cloth sort, you can fit almost twice as many flat weave towels in the wash. Read more about that experiment (and other water saving tips) here.

4. Durable

Our products are made to last, not destined for landfill. We use quality yarn and natural fibres that are sustainable and long-lasting. Your Mungo towel won’t last you a season – it’ll last a lifetime.

5. Compact

Less bulky than a traditional terry cloth, a flat weave towel can easily be rolled up to squeeze into a backpack, or folded for storage. Planning your next holiday? Forget about jumping / standing / sitting on your luggage to get the darn things to zip up. A flat weave towel is so light, it might just help you with your packing peeves.

6. 100% Natural Fibres

Mungo flat weave towels are made from cotton and/or linen. These fibres are praised for being soft, durable and hypoallergenic – making your Mungo flat weave less likely to give you any sniffs or snuffles. These versatile fibres are also fabulous at regulating temperature – so whatever the season, you’ll feel ‘just right.’

7. Versatile Bath, Pool or Beach Towel

A Mungo flat weave towel is just as at home in the bathroom as on the beach. And with our extensive range of designs and colourways, we’ve got something for even the toughest towel critic. We’ve even heard of our towels being used as picnic blankets, skirts and tablecloths.

8. Sand Repellent

Avoid taking the beach home with you. With its flat weave nature, this towel has less nooks and crannies for sand to get stuck in. #beachbonus

9. Fresher for Longer

Woven from cotton and/or linen, our flat weave towels are anti-microbial and anti-bacterial, making them naturally resistant to mildew. You don’t have to wash them after each use, and they’ll smell fresher for longer.

10. Transparency & Traceability

Part of the reason we built our very own mill was a commitment to radical transparency. We wanted to move away from ‘big industry’, and the harsh working conditions and environmental harm that comes with that. At Mungo we play a hand in each step of the process – from the design right through to the final product – and we we value each person that plays a role along the way. Your Mungo flat weave towel is no exception. Read more about what we do, and why we do it, here.

11. They Look so Darn Good

We couldn’t forget about the design. Mungo creates classic weaves with a contemporary twist. From timeless stone-coloured towels, to bold and bright statement pieces, there’s surely a towel for everyone.

Having trouble choosing with Mungo towel to take home? We asked our team to pick their favourite Mungo towel. Check out their selections for some inspiration.