60s mod geometric circle print cotton bandana - red

a bright red american cotton bandana printed with a bold mod geometric, made sometime after 1959 and most likely in the 1960s. the border is a dense band of cream discs, each one filled with a small red quatrefoil or four-petal flower, framed by a thin black line. the center field scatters clusters of cream dots in three-by-three grids and diamonds, accented with tiny black points, and the clusters grow from small at the center outward toward the border so the whole square reads as a slow radiating burst. this is a departure from the paisley most people picture when they picture a bandana. the paisley format had been the american default since the early 1900s, and prints like this one belong to the moment when mills started running graphic, op-inflected geometry instead. the corner carries the printed mark rn 14193, 100% cotton, colorfast. rn numbers are federal registered identification numbers, and since the current series did not begin until 1959, that mark sets the earliest possible date for this piece. the wording "colorfast" is a later variant of the "fast color" language that mills had been printing on bandana corners since the 1920s to advertise dye that would survive washing. one edge is a true selvage, the finished woven edge of the cloth, while the other three are overlocked. that single-selvage configuration is its own date marker. american mills wove on narrow looms into the late 1950s, and bandanas cut from those narrow bolts carry two selvages. once the mills moved to wider yardage, a square cut from the width picked up only one, which is the arrangement you see here.

please note: three edges are overlocked and the fourth is a true selvage, with light fraying and a few loose threads at the corners.

all bandanas are gently cleaned and pressed. beyond that we let them be, so any fading, softening, or small marks of use stay exactly as they came to us.