Natural Dyeing Traditions – Visiting Dhuri’s Workshop
During one of my last days in
When I got to her studio, there was a marigold dye bath started from the morning. She took me up to the roof to see the garments she dyed in the morning (you can see the pretty yellow that they make in the picture above) and she showed me how she reuses her wastewater in her rooftop garden. Sustainability is factored into every step in her process. The whole garment comes together in her workshop from patternmaking and sewing to natural dyeing and water treatment.
There seems to be a mantra forming in the sustainable business space that “you can’t do it all, pick what you’re passionate about and focus on that.” Madhurima proves that maybe we can do it all, we just need to innovate to make it happen. She has spent time perfecting her process and her brand to make high-quality garments that are friendly to the environment and reasonably priced. Granted it’s small batch production, but isn’t that they way sustainable fashion should be?
She took me through her natural dyeing process and how she incorporates sustainability into each step. For the m
She has experimented with different combinations of fabrics, dyes
Beyond her natural dyeing workshop and sustainable practices, Madhurima also works with local women’s empowerment training centers and innovates new techniques. The women in the training centers are working now to make products out of fabric waste from Madhurima’s production. She also shared a new technique she’s testing out to screen print using natural dyes. The issue is finding the right binding agent, and she seems to have found a good one for keeping the color from bleeding outside the print. It was inspiring to see how fastidious Madhurima is in her approach to sustainability, and how she’s motivated to find solutions to the problems she faces along the way.
Dhuri is part of a growing sustainable fashion movement in India. We had connected through an Indian sustainable fashion community group on Facebook called SUSS. The group is full of pioneering sustainable fashion brands and supporters. They still face a lot of the same problems as we do here in the US, like explaining to consumers how harmful fast fashion can be on both people and the environment. The inequality in India also poses unique challenges in promoting sustainable fashion, there is only a select class of people who are able to afford to make conscious buying choices. That being said, I’m hopeful that groups like SUSS and holistic businesses like Dhuri are able to shine a light on these issues and push the conversation to the mainstream.
To learn more about Dhuri and shop their collections, check out their website.
Job Creation and Traditional Craft – Tasar Silk Weaving in Bhagalpur, India
I went off the beaten path to learn about Eco Tasar’s model for creating jobs for people at the base of the pyramid, visiting their silk spinning and reeling clusters in Jharkhand and weaving clusters in Bhagalpur, Bihar. They are vertically integrated, producing their own yarn and textiles, and are supporting the Tasar Silk weaving tradition at risk of dying out. In
Eco Tasar is a typical cottage industry artisan producer, sourcing yarn and hand-weaving that is done in the home. This can be ideal for rural communities that have limited options for employment and may want to stay home to tend to farms, household chores, and children. It also gives people an alternative to seeking seasonal work in big cities, which would take them away from their homes and families. Despite these benefits for artisans, it can be difficult to work with international brands and abide by compliance regulations to sell products in countries like the U.S. Since the work is being done outside of a four-walled factory, certifications like fair-trade are not always applicable. I’ll be discussing players in the field that are doing great work to bridge this gap and help artisan brands like Eco Tasar reach global markets in a future post. For this article, I’ll look at how Eco Tasar is creating cottage industry opportunities for people in poor communities in India and preserving a cultural tradition.
Raw Materials – Silk Cocoons
Tasar silk is at the root of their product. Although they don’t harvest the silk themselves, they source from local vendors near Eco Tasar’s Jharkhand office. During my time in Jharkhand, I visited the Ministry of Textiles’ Central Silk Board where I got to see some silk worms and cocoons up close. I never realized quite how large
Making Yarn – Spinning and Reeling
After sourcing the raw materials, the cocoons are then distributed to the spinning and reeling villages. There are two methods of producing yarn, hand spinning
The women in the spinning and weaving clusters were happy with their work and felt good about contributing to the family income. Since they had the tools to work from home, they could make yarn in between household work and caring for their children. The extra income has helped them send their kids to school, improve their households and buy luxury items like jewelry and clothing. Since they live in rural communities, traveling for work is difficult and almost unheard of for women. Giving them an opportunity to work from home offers them a chance to contribute to their family income that they wouldn’t otherwise have.
The women work together and store the finished product in the villages. Eco Tasar provides the raw materials up front, drops off and collects the materials from the villages and pays their spinners and reelers on a regular schedule. This allows the women to do their work without worrying about transportation, up front costs, or how much they’ll get paid and when. Having consistency and a reliable payment schedule can help families plan for dips in family income or unexpected emergencies.
Producing Textiles – Tasar Weaving
A couple hours away near Bhagalpur, I walked around weaving clusters and met weavers. You know you’re in a weaving cluster when you hear a steady clacking of looms as you pass by homes.
Eco Tasar distributes the materials to their Master Weavers who work with their network of weavers to create the textiles on their traditional pit looms. Weaving is a male-dominated tradition in India, so unlike spinning and weaving villages, all the weavers we spoke to were male.
There was a different mood in the weaving clusters than I saw in the villages in Jharkhand. Most of the weavers I spoke with are not teaching their children and saw the craft dying out in the next 5 to 10 years. Without the market access and appreciation for handwoven textiles, they are being replaced by power looms that buzz in the city center. There was some variance in opinion between weavers, some were happy with their work and others were fairly negative about the future of the craft. It was clear though that it is becoming a niche market, that few consumers truly appreciate and value.
Women and children of working age are also often involved in the weaving preparation, from spinning bobbins to setting up the warp for the loom. Many families work as a team to create the textiles
I’m anxious to revisit Eco Tasar’s work in a few years to see how the weaving clusters are faring. A great deal of product innovation and shifts in the market will need to take place to continue to grow the Tasar Silk market and to ensure that there is sufficient demand for the product at a price point that allows for a living wage for weavers. I have faith that the tradition will live on, but it may be turning into more of a luxury market as the cultural knowledge becomes scarce.
Eco Tasar currently sells their products wholesale to international brands like West Elm and to local Indian retailers. You can also reach out to them directly through Instagram if you’re interested in purchasing their handwoven products.
Block Printing Traditions of Bagru – A Tour of Block Print House
About an hours drive outside of the city of Jaipur in Bagru, I met Deepak Chhipa, who runs his family’s block printing business called Block Print House. I drove up along the long dirt road to his home and was welcomed by brightly colored textiles drying on the lawn. Walking into the complex I saw the block printers rhythmically stamping away at their fabrics as I passed the workshop.
The Block Print House largely works with international brands to produce custom orders, they develop some designs for local markets as well. Deepak also gives tours and holds workshops for tourists who would like to learn more about the process. He also has some stock in the showroom for purchase, and it’s hard to leave without getting something. After seeing the artists in action and the skill they have to create such flawless pieces, I just had to take some fabric home with me for future projects. Not to mention, the prices was extremely reasonable for beautiful artisan-made products.
The Process
The process for each textile is different depending on the design. I’ll take you through the basic steps of creating block print textiles – carving the blocks, block printing, mud resist dyeing and dyeing the textiles.
BLOCK CARVING | First, they source the fabrics locally and wash and dye the
BLOCK PRINTING | The blocks are then used to print designs on the textile. This is either done with azo-free dyes, mud for resist dyeing and a bleaching solution to create different effects. In the picture to the right, the artisan is adding a second color to the floral pattern. This is very difficult because you have to match up everything perfectly. I had a chance to try block printing (with just one color) and it was extremely challenging to maintain consistency. Mine ended up too blotchy or slightly crooked, even though I was trying so hard to match up to the patterns and not put too much ink or press too hard.
I loved seeing the range of different designs, it would have been fun to just experiment and make designs at their workshop for a few days. The mud resist dyeing, in particular, would have been interesting to play around with. He showed us designs where they did mud resist printing before dyeing the whole textiles and others later in the process after block printing a pattern onto the fabric, and before dyeing the fabric for a second time. For example, in the picture below, she’s using mud resist dyeing to keep the flower part of the design pink, the whole fabric will be dyed with indigo next. It seems like there are endless possibilities.
The opportunity to try the craft hands-on was so helpful to understand how hard it is to master. The artisans in the workshop go so quickly and make it look easy. If you’re in Jaipur, you should definitely check it out. You can connect with him through Instagram, @blockprinthouse.