BAREFOOT SHOP
The shop that most impressed me in the Galle Fort area was the Barefoot Shop. I have been a number of times to the Barefoot Shop in Colombo but thought that this time, because the new highway goes inland and bypasses the busy Galle Road where the Barefoot Shop is, I would miss it. But after the 2004 tsunami flooded much of Galle which I watched on TV as a 15 foot high wave that washed away the Galle bus station, where I arrived and am leaving from, and obliterated much of Una Watuna, the Barefoot shop opened a beautiful extension in the Galle Fort area. It turned out that the massive walls of the fort protected the heritage fort area from the tsunami leaving this beautiful area untouched.
Barbara Sansoni grew up in Kandy, went to a convent school in India during the Second World War, went to Art School in England and then became a pioneer in both architecture and the craft movement in Sri Lanka. She developed a form of textiles in brilliant colors with imported dyes that transformed for a new urban elite, traditional Sri Lankan textiles into a new international form. She died in 2022 at the age of 94. The Barefoot Shop was one of her showplaces. I won’t try to describe her textiles, I will just show you photographs of the store. The store also has an online business if you are interested.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 