Climb the hill behind the main stage an hour after sunset and look down. The booth glows at the center, the first ring of dancers presses close to the speakers, the next sways looser, and the outer ring drifts toward the chill dome, each a shade dimmer than the last. Nobody drew it. A crowd around a sound arranges itself in circles.
Somewhere in that outer ring, a long charcoal cloak catches the light, and silver wheels open across it, one inside another, each turning around a center of its own. The crowd is a mandala. So is the cloak.
The circle has kept remarkable company. It names the ten books of the oldest Vedic scripture, Tibetan Buddhist monks build it grain by grain in colored sand, and during the First World War it filled a Swiss psychiatrist's notebook. We draw it in silver and charcoal as Void Mandala, in a full rainbow as Chakra Mandala, and in one glowing hue as Purple or Teal Mandala.
What is a mandala, and where does it come from?
A mandala is a geometric arrangement of sacred symbols that began in India's religions, and its Sanskrit name simply means "circle." Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions use it as a map of the deities and the cosmos, and as a focus for meditation. Its signature is radial balance: every line answers to the center.
In Hinduism, the basic form, also called a yantra, is a square with four T-shaped gates enclosing a circle with a center point (Wikipedia). Many tantric Buddhist mandalas wrap their center in four protective rings: a fire that stands for wisdom, a fence of vajras, eight charnel grounds that keep impermanence in view, and a ring of lotus petals.
The form lives naturally on fabric: with no top and no bottom, it holds together from any angle a crowd sees you. Our mandalas are visionary art inspired by living traditions, and we wear them as homage.
Why do monks sweep away a finished sand mandala?
To show impermanence. In the Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala tradition, monks lay colored grains into an intricate mandala over days or weeks, then dismantle it in a ceremony that reflects the teaching that material life is transitory. The gathered sand goes to moving water and is released back into the world.
The making. Historically the "sand" was crushed colored stone; today white stone is ground and dyed. The monks use an extra-dense sand that a breeze, or a sneeze, barely disturbs, and a team builds one section at a time from the middle outward with small tubes, funnels and scrapers called chak-pur (Wikipedia).
The unmaking. Even the deity syllables are lifted out in a set order, along with the rest of the geometry. Then the sand is carried in a silk-wrapped jar to a river or other moving water (Wikipedia), where, as the tradition holds, it spreads the mandala's blessings (Wikipedia).
A weekend of dancing is no monastic practice, but anyone who has watched a festival city rise from an empty field and leave it clean four days later knows a small echo of that lesson.
Should your mandala cloak be silver or rainbow?
Choose by the light you'll stand in. Magus Fawn's Void Mandala cloak sets silver-grey mandalas on charcoal and black, close to all-black from across a field and rich in detail up close. The Chakra Mandala cloak stacks a full rainbow of mandalas from a red hem up to a violet hood. Both share one build.
That build: a micro-mink poly outer (listed fabric weight 200 g/m²), heavy drawstrings on the hood, a faux-fur lining (choose black or white), a double zipper down the front and four pockets: two deep ones at the sides plus two stash pockets inside, one of them zippered. The fit is unisex from XS to 5XL, and every cloak comes made to order.
The night sky: Void Mandala. The Void Mandala Women's Festival Cloak ($250) is a night sky drawn in wheels. Every wheel opens into finer wheels, frost-pale on coal, crowding the hood and both front panels, and one medallion on the back holds an Om. Our photo shows the way we love it best: hood up, open over a black bodysuit and fishnets. The same art comes as the Void Mandala Men's Festival Cloak ($250), so a matched pair can walk into the techno tent together.
The spectrum: Chakra Mandala. The Chakra Mandala Men's Festival Cloak ($250) is the void's opposite: seven bands of glowing wheels on black, ordered like the chakras from spine to crown. Ember-red wheels pool at the hem, a copper one cradles a six-pointed star, a broad green medallion opens across the chest, and the color cools through blue to a violet hood. Zipped up, hood raised, it makes its wearer the easiest friend to find at any stage. The seven-color scheme is a modern Western addition to a far older idea (Wikipedia), as our guide to chakra colors and meanings explains.
For camp mornings. No mandala line comes as a hooded blanket, but our hooded blankets ($150) in other designs suit slow hours at camp: cat-ear-hooded 300 g/m² fleece pullovers in one size (4XL).
What do the Om and the yantra in the Void Mandala art mean?
Both are sacred signs from India's religions. Om is a seed syllable chanted as a mantra and invocation in Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism. A yantra is a sacred diagram, most often tantric, that serves worship and meditation. Magus Fawn's Void Mandala art sets both among its silver rings, placed with respect for the traditions they come from.
The Om. The syllable emerged in the Vedic texts and is spoken before and during scripture recitation, in puja and private prayer, at weddings and in meditation. Written as a glyph, it is Hinduism's most important symbol (Wikipedia). One of its names, Pranava, means "fore-sound," and the Aitareya Brahmana, a commentary belonging to the Rigveda, matches its three sounds, a, u and m, to three stages of cosmic creation.
The mandala shirt. On the Cotton T-Shirt | Void Mandala ($60), medallions run down the spine, and in our photo the one at mid-back holds an Om at its center; the front carries its own stack of rings. It's 190 g/m², all cotton, crew-necked, regular fit, XS to 5XL.
The yantra. A yantra grows outward from its center, the bindu, which stands for the deity the diagram belongs to. Triangles, rings and lotus petals open around it, often inside a square with a door to each of the four directions (Wikipedia).
Where to find ours. Look closely at the Cotton Sleeveless Hooded Tank | Void Mandala ($80): one wheel opens onto a triangle-lattice yantra, its triangles nesting inward to a single point, two neighbors cradle an Om, and a Flower of Life drifts nearby, all ash on black. It's 100% cotton, 310 g/m², with a kangaroo pouch and a drawstring at the hood, regular fit, XS to 5XL: arms bare, hood within reach.
Why did Carl Jung draw mandalas?
To track his own inner life. During the First World War, while commanding a Swiss camp for interned British soldiers, the psychiatrist Carl Jung began making spontaneous circular drawings (Wikipedia), for a time sketching a small one each morning. He borrowed the Sanskrit word mandala for the circles he and his patients drew, after reading India's philosophical texts.
Each morning's circle, he wrote in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, "seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time" (Wikipedia). In 1922 he bought land at Bollingen, built a tower there and kept adding to it, a home Wikipedia's Jung biography calls an architectural mandala (Wikipedia).
Anyone who has filled a notebook margin with rings knows the pull, and visionary art starts there too: a center, a first circle, and the patience to keep going outward.
The everyday mandala: the velvet hoodie. Jung kept his circles in a notebook; the Crushed Velvet Pullover Hoodie | Void Mandala ($100) keeps them on your chest, one grand wheel between the drawstrings and dozens more packed shoulder to cuff in pewter, ash and slate. Crushed velvet shifts its sheen as you turn, so the rings brighten as stage lights sweep past. It's 95% poly and 5% spandex at 240 g/m², with a drawstring at the hood, a kangaroo pouch and a regular fit, S to 2XL: the mandala hoodie for the walk home and every ordinary day.
Can you wear mandala clothing head to toe?
Yes, and the Chakra Mandala line makes it easy. Magus Fawn's Chakra Mandala tee runs red at the shoulders down to violet by the hem, and the Chakra Mandala joggers run violet around the hips down to red by the ankles, so together they meet in violet at your waist. Add one mandala cap and you're done.
The mirrored rainbow. Start with the Crushed Velvet T-Shirt | Chakra Mandala ($60), where an Om glows inside a golden wheel on the chest, in 240 g/m² crushed velvet (95/5 poly-spandex), crew neck, regular fit, XS to 5XL. The Joggers | Chakra Mandala ($100; $105 in 2XL and $108 in 3XL) flip the rainbow from cuff to waist. Their 308 g/m² knit blends recycled poly (96%) with elastane (4%), cotton-feel outside and brushed vegan fleece inside, with a drawstring on the elastic waist, side pockets and ankle cuffs. The fit is slim, XS through 3XL, so order one or two sizes up for a looser feel.
The crown. Top it with the Snapback Hat | Purple Mandala ($40): black zigzag linework ripples around the violet crown in rings, like record grooves, and our photo catches an Om on one back panel beside the snap strap. It's 150 g/m² dye-sublimated poly in one adjustable unisex size, and the same cap comes in Teal Mandala if your crew runs cooler.
Made to order, sized for layers
For cloaks and hoodies, our FAQ suggests sizing up, "sometimes even 2 sizes up to fit extra layers under." Between sizes? Email your measurements to art@magusfawn.com; we typically reply within 1–2 business days.
Production takes 7–11 business days, then delivery takes 6–14 business days. US shipping is free at $70 and up ($8 below that), international shipping starts at $10, and all sales are final, so find your center on the size chart before you check out.
Cold water, like colors and no bleach; a low tumble, or better, a hang dry; no iron, no dry cleaner. The cotton tank's listing notes 3–5% shrinkage in the first wash, so line-dry the cotton pieces. Dye sublimation sets the art in the fiber, so the wheels won't fade or crack. A review George left in May 2023 for a different design, our Madriax cloak, sums up the build every one of our cloaks shares: "So comfortable you almost forgot how cool it looks!"
Back to the center
A circle of verses in the Rigveda, a circle of sand released into a river, a circle drawn in a notebook before breakfast. The mandala has always been a way of finding the center and keeping it. Choose yours in silver or in a full rainbow, and wear it into the middle of the crowd.
Find your mandala layer: women's cloaks · men's cloaks · all festival cloaks
More to read: sacred geometry across traditions, from the Flower of Life to the Sri Yantra and Needs Only, a Big Sur silent-retreat love story in Chakra Mandala
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to make a sand mandala?
Traditionally several weeks for a large one. A team of monks works section by section from the center outward, and the Kalachakra mandala alone holds 722 deities within its geometry. Smaller designs, like one attributed to the deity Vajrabhairava, need less geometry but still take several days, according to Wikipedia's sand mandala article.
Are mandalas only found in Hinduism and Buddhism?
No. The mandala began in Indian religions and is also part of Jainism, where, as in Hinduism and Buddhism, it serves as a map representing deities. In Japan's Shinto religion, mandalas map paradises, kami or actual shrines. And in the twentieth century, the psychiatrist Carl Jung carried the word into Western psychology.
What did yantra originally mean in Sanskrit?
Literally, a machine or contraption. In the Sanskrit of the Rigveda, yantra meant an instrument for fastening, or a prop or support, from a root meaning to sustain. The sense of a mystical diagram appears in the medieval period. Today a yantra is a sacred geometric diagram from the tantric traditions of India.
Why are the books of the Rigveda called mandalas?
Because mandala means circle, and the Rigveda, the oldest known text in Vedic Sanskrit, is organized into ten books called mandalas, each of a different age and length. Scholars consider the family books, mandalas two through seven, the oldest and shortest part. So each book is, in name, a circle of hymns.
Written by Magus & Lylyth Fawn, the Los Angeles artists behind Magus Fawn. Magus makes VR and digital visionary art and produces Psy EDM. Lylyth makes fractal digital art and runs design and customer care. We've been selling wearable art since 2020 (4.8★ from 147 reviews as of October 2026), and every piece is made to order here at magusfawn.com. Come say hi on Instagram @magusfawn.
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