HUMANS AND HEMP

Tracing humanity’s enduring relationship with Canapa.

Throughout history, certain materials have accompanied us through the changing ages—objects shaped not only by the hand, but by necessity, memory, and relationship. Hemp, or Cannabis Sativa L., is one of them. Its presence predates many of the systems we now call civilisation. It has dressed, sheltered, nourished, and healed. It has sailed oceans and endured prohibitions. And now, it returns, not as a rediscovery, but as a material whose relevance never truly left.

This is the story of companionship—between people and plant, culture and earth.

Before agriculture had names, before trade routes were etched across continents, hemp had already taken root. Archaeological traces—rope impressions on clay, fragments of woven fibre—suggest its cultivation began over 10,000 years ago. It is one of the first plants known to have been domesticated, valued not for one singular use, but for many.

In early China, where canapa's legacy is especially deep, the plant served as a thread through everyday life. Its fibres were used to make textiles, ropes, and fishing nets; its stalks formed the basis of early paper. By 2800 BCE, hemp had already become a tool of civilisation—helping communities to build, record, and sustain. It wasn’t a commodity in the modern sense. It was simply part of the fabric of living.

There was no ceremony to it—just a simple, mutual exchange. People tended to the plant, and in return, it provided what was needed: strength, structure, nourishment. In Taoist philosophy, nature is not something to be conquered but followed. Hemp, with its uncomplicated usefulness, fitted easily into that worldview. It offered solutions without spectacle.

What remains striking is not how advanced these early applications were, but how intuitively they emerged. People used what was close to them, and what lasted. Hemp was both.

A bridge between the physical and the divine

As the plant travelled westward, it was received in different ways. In India, canapa took on a sacred presence. Ancient texts such as the Atharva Veda describe it as one of five essential plants, linked to both healing and spiritual insight. Its use was layered: woven into daily life as medicine, ritual, nourishment, and symbol.

Further west, the fibres found their way into Egyptian culture, wrapping bodies in preparation for the afterlife. In Greece and Rome, it was used to build: sails for ships, ropes for construction, even poultices for wounds. Practicality was its language, yet the intimacy of its application—worn on skin, pressed into paper, held in hand—suggests something more enduring than function.

In the medieval and early modern periods, hemp became inseparable from movement. Ships relied on it—for sails, rigging, caulking. Empires were built on wood and hemp, carried across oceans by fibres twisted strong enough to hold the ambitions of entire nations.

In many parts of Europe, farmers were required by law to cultivate hemp. It fed the needs of expanding navies and merchant fleets, and supported the growing demand for canvas, paper, and clothing. Maps that charted the unknown were printed on hemp. Books that shaped Enlightenment thought were bound with its thread.

In early colonial America, hemp was not only encouraged—it was essential. George Washington grew it. Thomas Jefferson wrote of its value. At times, it functioned as currency. Even early drafts of the Declaration of Independence were written on hemp paper. It was a working fibre, a democratic one.

The 20th century marked a shift. Hemp, once a material of progress, was recast in the language of prohibition. The reasons were not botanical. They were industrial, racial, political.

As synthetic fibres gained popularity, and the cotton industry sought dominance, hemp became a threat. It required fewer pesticides, less water, and less land. It was too efficient. Laws were passed, narratives rewritten. In 1937, the U.S. Marihuana Tax Act effectively criminalised the plant, conflating its psychoactive cousin with its industrial form.

Campaigns were launched linking hemp to deviance, supported by newspaper magnates and political figures with vested interests. What had once been integral was now maligned, and fields that had grown hemp for centuries fell dormant.

Hemp never disappeared—it was simply set aside. But in the last few decades, something has shifted. As the climate changes, and our relationship with resources grows more urgent, canapa reappears in the conversation. Not as novelty, but as necessity.

Its qualities remain unchanged: rapid growth, low environmental impact, exceptional strength. But now, they speak directly to our moment. Hemp absorbs carbon as it grows. It enriches the soil. It requires no chemical inputs. It is circular by nature.

It also speaks to wellness in a contemporary language. Its seeds offer protein and essential fatty acids. Its extracts are studied for anti-inflammatory, anxiolytic effects. And its fibres, when spun with care, create clothing that breathes and endures.

What makes hemp compelling today is not only its sustainability, but its humanity. It doesn’t dazzle. It endures. It does not promise reinvention, but restoration.

For us, hemp offers a philosophy in fibre form: to live closer to the land, to choose what lasts and to find elegance in the essential. Our collections begin with canapa because it offers something foundational. Something honest. It carries with it millennia of human touch—twisting rope, threading needles, pressing pulp. We don’t claim to have rediscovered it. We simply listened.

And now, we begin again.