Thirty-three-years-old Revathy at Dindigul is weaving for the last 10 years. She takes two days to weave a 6.2 metre sari and moves her hands and legs 19,600 times to weave a sari.
Though not earlier, customers who buy a hand-woven sari at Co-optex can know the weaver’s name and experience from a tag attached to the sari.
Hand-woven
There are also tags that certify if a product is hand-woven, is made out of pure silk, or is organic.
More retailers are having space and a wider product range at the outlets of hand-woven, organic, traditional textile products and are educating customers on these.
Buyers are becoming more aware of the workmanship of handloom textiles. For them, it is an exclusive product. “Handloom saris are appreciated for their design, intricacy and texture. And, there is a wide range even in handlooms. Jamdani weaves, Kadva designs with intricate Meena work, and Kalamkari work by hand are designs that can never be replaced by power looms. As trends and styles are changing, weavers are experimenting with different blends of yarns and prints to produce a variety of textures and designs,” says Paras Jain from Mahaveers group.
“Handlooms are always in demand. We introduced recently organic saris for which yarn is spun organically cultivated cotton. Vegetable and fruit dyes are used to add colour to the saris,” says Natrajan, Manager of Co-optex.
At Fab India, there are ranges with lambadi, lucknavi, and chicken kari embroidery and ajark, bach, batik, kalamkari prints. The outlet has monthly promotions for different prints, colours, designs, etc and each of the prints and embroideries are promoted during a month. The demand now is more for different kinds of prints.
