Damien, 26, comes from a Bordeaux business school, his sister Marie, 24, from the School of Fine Arts in Rennes. Two areas of expertise that they decided to combine by creating Kalamar. "With the invasion of octopus, I went fishing several times and stained my clothes and the boat, hence the idea of recovering the ink from octopuses and cuttlefish to screen print clothes. In fact it started from a joke! Damien explained.
Marie was already drawing in textile pencil on T-shirts. Thanks to a friend, Malo Jezequel who worked at the Concarneau auction, they recovered octopus ink. Then they immersed themselves in research for the manufacture of ink. "We used octopus ink only for the black of the screen printing. We played apprentice chemists to prepare the ink, basify it, mix it with other products, such as baking soda, filter it through a coffee filter and, finally, mix it with screen printing ink." For the rest, the recipe is secret, as secret as that of the famous magic potion...
Dozens of washes and it holds!
And it holds, even after dozens of 90° machine washes. "The ink doesn't move. However, we tried dozens of times in the machine, "said the duo. The adventure began with a first series of screen-printed clothes, then a second... They quickly had the wind in their sails. The Kalamar brand has successfully anchored in southern Finistère.
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"Marie creates the silkscreened patterns, inspired by the ocean, personal emotions, octopuses and faces. In fact, our logo depicts two symmetrical inverted squid hats. We then print the patterns on T-shirts, sweatshirts, bags and some aprons.
For the moment, the brand is only distributed in a few shops, including "L'Artère" in Quimperlé. But Damien, who is in charge of the communication and sales part, Marie taking care of the design and creation part, already has many contacts for upcoming events, Christmas markets, associative festivities, as well as restaurants and bars that require special silkscreened series.
Contact: kalamar.bzh or kalamarkrew@gmail.com
