There's no string in a proper onion plait

Eleven onions, hanging in a plait down the front of the shirt. No string runs through it. The bulbs narrow towards the top, bound in by their own dried necks, and the whole rope ends in one loop.

The onions are holding themselves up. That's the entire design, and the entire trick.

What is actually holding this plait together?

The onions' own necks, braided into each other while they're still soft enough to bend.

Pulled and left to cure for a couple of weeks, the leafy top of an onion dries down to a tough, papery neck rather than rotting off — and that neck, worked while it still has a little give left in it, braids exactly the way three strands of rope would. Add a bulb every few turns and the plait keeps growing until there's nothing left to add.

Why does braiding beat just tying the bulbs into a bunch?

Because a plait spreads the weight down a continuous length instead of hanging it all from one knot, so no single neck is carrying eleven bulbs on its own.

A bunch tied at the top puts every bit of load through whichever necks are nearest the string, and those are usually the first to give. In a plait, each bulb is braided in at its own point, held by the two neighbouring necks crossing over it rather than by a knot above it — the same distribution a climbing bean gets from a wigwam of poles rather than one straight cane.

What makes a good plait — even bulbs, or a mix of sizes?

Letting the sizes stay uneven rather than sorting for a matching row.

A plait of identical bulbs looks like it was bought that way. One with a genuinely large bulb near the base and smaller ones tapering towards the loop reads as what it actually is — a whole crop, lifted on one afternoon and worked with whatever came out of the ground, rather than a display piece built from selected stock.

Who owns the shape of a plait like this?

Nobody. Braiding a crop by its own necks is a method that's been worked out and re-worked out for as long as onions have needed storing, and no single grower or seller has any claim on it.

What is owned is a particular variety's name if it's a recent, registered one — plant breeders' rights cover that the same way a trademark covers a brand, for a fixed number of years, which is why this plait carries no variety name at all rather than an invented one standing in for a real breeder's work. A specific seed company's branding is a separate matter again, and belongs to the company.

Does the same idea work for garlic, or only onions?

It works for anything that dries down to a tough enough neck to braid, which in practice means garlic and shallots as readily as onions.

The mechanism doesn't care what's inside the papery skin — it only needs the top growth to cure into something with the strength of dried grass rather than the softness of a fresh leaf. A design built around a garlic plait would draw the same braid with narrower, more pointed bulbs; the argument about weight and storage carries over exactly.

Isn't string simpler than a genuine plait?

Simpler to make, and worse at the one job that matters, which is keeping air moving around every bulb.

String bunches press bulb against bulb with nothing between them, so any one going soft can pass rot to its neighbours before anyone notices. A plait holds each onion at a slight angle to the ones either side of it, with gaps a bunch never has — which is closer to why a strung crop keeps and a bagged one doesn't, even though one is about airflow and the other about time.

Does it print well?

Yes — a tall, narrowing column of repeated round shapes is a strong print even without any colour variation between the bulbs.

Papery cream on charcoal keeps the skin texture of each bulb readable without it turning muddy, and the braid itself works best drawn as an unbroken rope rather than eleven separate ties — the continuity is the whole point. One or two inks is enough; more would start competing with the repetition that makes the shape read at a glance.

How do I get one made?

Describe the plait at JustOG — how many bulbs, how tightly bound, and whether to keep the sizes uneven. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

Eleven bulbs, one loop, and not a length of string anywhere in it.