With our unique brands
KOKO produces an array of hand-made silk and a variety of housewares and accessories made from hand made silks.

The Marianne Kooimans clothing line: very forward, modern women’s fashion.
Beautiful combinations of European styling and fabric combined with our unique spectrum of Asian silks.

Miss O children's clothing. Unique dresses and accessories for young ladies under the age of five.

Weaving, together
Together we have a decade of experience in enlarging the offerings of traditional fabrics with new qualities, patterns and colors.

While enabling production of larger amounts of silk sold by the meter (instead of local purchases per sarong) we’ve also led development and application for highly complicated patterns and techniques, preserving outstanding traditions and high craftsmanship.

Increasing the volume of silk production
Partnering with Dosa, we have developed various qualities of lighter-weight fabrics, intended for fabrication of clothing. Our development of a hand-woven organza/pina silk originated from small plaid Cambodian silk scarves; and developed various qualities of softer silk.

We’ve implemented and developed a simple system of naming in order to distinguish between the various new qualities of silk. This has become an industry standard and is utilized by weavers as a common vernacular.

Preserving the craft
During our past decade of working in Cambodia we have intentionally (and sometimes inadvertently!) become in involved in the preservation and re-invigoration of old Cambodian patterns. Due to the political upheaval in Cambodia, many old patterns and ways of weaving have been preserved in small hamlets like Surin while still others made their way throughout the neighboring regions.

The very act of creating larger weaving projects in Cambodia has allowed the life of the hand-weavers to retain their traditional way of life, weaving under their houses part-time while farming during the rice-growing season. We believe this insures a better home-life and family structure than the alternatives - such as factory work city-oriented laboring jobs.

Cambodian weavers are very talented and artistic. While preservation is important, we have also developed entirely new applications and varieties of weft-ikat, swirl ikat and cross-bred silks utilizing Thai, Mon, Burman, Bagan and Siamese design traditions coupled with Cambodian execution, weaving skills and color sense, resulting in rich complexity and unique multiple dye processes.

We have developed many non-traditional patterns of weft ikat woven silk. Weft ikat is made from spools of pre-dyed thread that as it is woven by hand, the pattern emerges in the weft threads. While watching these silk being woven over time, we discovered that the winding of spool was not an exact science and many times the weaver were left with extra spools as a kind of wastage.

We have encouraged the weaving of these spools into fabrics which created the element of color ‘randomness’ (and creativity) in new weaves we call ‘swirl ikat’.

Ongoing experimentation
Applying traditional twill woven uni-colors, we’ve developed numerous non-traditional colors and color combinations for modern designer clothing, as can be seen in our signature fabrics in the Dosa collections.

Our introduction of new fibers into the silk weaving (with utmost respect to the high quality of woven textiles), has helped facilitate the ushering in of Cambodia into part of a modern textile (and subsequently fashion) markets. We’re happy to be creating an alternative venue from corporations which are only there to satisfy the demands for cheaply made jeans, sweatshirts and other mass-produced garments.

We make every effort to support Cambodian weavers wishing to remain in their villages and preserving their unique way of living. We have interested them in cooperative projects, (working together), artistic stimulation (working differently) and competitive pay.

While not seeking to inhibit or limit weavers, and respectful of traditional craft and historical costume markets, we are dedicated to learning and nurturing interest in the vast number of past styles and techniques – while looking forward.

Innovation is a priority.

We are bringing selected fabrics to other regions of the world to incorporate different embellishments to the fabric, such as embroidery (in it’s widest meanings). And our work with some small, very creative factories (such as ones in Italy and France), we both help keep them solvent, while protecting their unique traditions and capabilities.

We are developing new fabrics for a full spectrum of markets in select villages throughout the region, with careful attention to weaving techniques (which vary substantially from those of nearby cultures), incorporating an application of traditional design into unexpected fabrics and in garments. We are currently developing lighter weight (uni color) qualities to enlarge their quantity of silk production.

We have introduced more special traditional fabrics such as the kin tud (men’s wedding fabric) in new designs and colors, and developed a very special “100 spool” fabric “sa bai new cheik” in new colors and patterns. We’re developing new patterns, in jacquard and gangaw silk.

Innovative elements A leading thread (pardon our pun) of ours is a continuous flow between “costume”, clothing, and various textiles. Women’s clothing Silk children’s dresses Men’s shirts Accessories (hats, pillow cases, scarves, purses) Textiles

Koko – our accessories and textiles
The first item for this line was a hat, derived from a cherished worn-out cotton surf hat. We began to search stores to find a replacement, or better yet, a more colorful version. However, after searching boutiques, Barneys, etc., we just couldn’t find anything we liked – mostly tan or army green affairs. It dawned on us that actually we made thousands of meters of really beautiful silk and well…why not make a hat from that. We drafted a pattern we had it fabricated in Cambodia. They turned out very nicely and eventually now under the koko label we make accessory items like aprons, pillows and scarves.

Dosa
When we first partnered with Dosa we were taken by the philosophy of the organization – spare and simple, utilizing materials in a maximizing way. Although the initial “line” wasn’t very unique (mostly Chinese blouses and wrap skirts using Indian fabrics of the type associated with hippie lofts and patchouli oil), Christina Kim, the designer, was very energetic and optimistic.

Willing to take risks, she frequently funded much our research and development of innovative new fabrics. We were perfectly suited to the demands of traveling (often in remote areas in Asia) to discover very unusual textiles.

As these textiles became the Dosa signature in the succeeding years, our efforts led to tremendous success and considerable acclaim as well as an extensive expansion of the facilities of our Los Angeles studio.

Miss O
Our irresistible children’s line originated in celebration of our daughter Oona. As we began (pardon the pun!) conceiving the line, much to our delight, we found that production of our other garments was leading to small trim remnants of our exceptionally beautiful adaptation of an iridescent plaid woven fabric called kin tud – perfect for these small dresses! We also found a perfect resource by our inclusion of the (often wasted) edges of pina organza silk for trim.