Some of Windochine’s most elegant and refined textiles are made of pineapple fiber, or piña, a strong white or creamy cobweb-like fiber drawn from the tall leaves of an indigenous wild pineapple plant. The fiber is hand stripped from the leaves in lengths of about 18 inches to 3 feet, sun-bleached, hand knotted and spun. As piña fiber recovery is only about 1%, it can take six months to gather enough fiber to produce two pounds of spun piña. Windochine’s finished products are both pure piña of differing weights from feathery gauze to sheer, and combinations using spun cocoon silk in dense, highly textural designs.
