In Ashok Nagar district in northern Madhya Pradesh state, nestled in hills, surrounded by forests and lakes and scattered with historic monuments, is the charming town of Chanderi. It is one of two towns in the state famous for its weaving heritage – the other is Maheshwar, which you can read about here. I took the awkward journey from Maheshwar where I was staying long term for my research, which involved a bus to Indore, a delayed train from Indore to Ashoknagar and from there a local bus along badly maintained roads (or damaged by recent rains), to Chanderi. At one point we passed a bus that had tipped off…
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Kota Doria
I recently visited Kota on my way from Jaipur to Maheshwar keen to learn about the Kota Doria sari weaving tradition. I was kindly helped by Victoria Singh, a local resident and founder of the Kota Heritage Society. After accompanying her on a few errands around town – she is involved in a lot of local charity and heritage work, she took me to the village of Kaithoon which is about fifteen kilometres from Kota, and the main centre for weaving in the region. Victoria Singh and Ritu Jain write more on the kora doria in an article for Hand-Eye magazine. We first went to meet Badrun Nisha, the secretary of the Women’s…
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The story of Spitalfields’ Silk
This summer has seen a celebration of the history and heritage of Spitalfields in East London in the form of two festivals: Spitalfields Music Festival and the Hunguenot Summer 2015 organised by The Huguenot Society. I joined a tour run by the Huguenot Society around the streets where the weavers and cloth merchants lived. I was amazed at the many layers of history in one small area – we must have only covered a square half-mile! The Huguenots were French Prostestant refugees who fled to London and other parts of Britain to escape persecution in France in the 16th century. The first Huguenots arrived in London in 1548. The majority were…
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Textiles in Depth: Handloom Weaving in India, part four. End of the journey
The journey to Maheshwar was long and exhausting. A long bumpy bus journey to Indore, a three hour wait for a bus then a three hour bus journey to Maheshwar. But it didn’t take long to realise whey I’d made all that effort as I walked up the streets and heard an orchestra of weaving looms! My guesthouse was the cheap and comfortable Hansa Heritage Hotel, situated at the bottom of the Ahilya fort which dominates the town. The room was surprisingly large with a traditional warm and earthy decor including Bagh block-printed bed covers (Bagh is a town not far away from Maheshwar which is renowned for its natural-dye and…
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Textiles in Depth: Handloom Weaving in India, Part Three
While in Rajkot, I called the other contact that Shamji had given me – Chandrakant Patel, who I was told managed an organisation that produce Khadi – a handspun and handwoven fabric, in Gondal, just 40 km from Rajkot. I asked if it was ok for me to come and visit for my research. About an hour later I received a call from Durgesh Jadeja, who informed me he worked as the fashion designer and PR at Udyog Bharti – the name of the organisation. He said he lived in Rajkot and was travelling to Gondal the following morning by car and would I like a lift. He also said…
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Textiles in Depth: Handloom Weaving in India, Part Two
When I visited Shamji in Bhujodi (see previous post) and told him of my research, he gave me the names and contact details of a few weavers I should visit in Saurashtra, the region to the south of Kutch in Gujarat – an area I had not yet visited. The first was Laljibhai Parmar who lives in Rajkot and is a member of an extended family of Ikat weavers. Laljibhai is not actually a weaver, although he hails from a weaving family, but his extended family are practicing weaving. Laljibhai makes the phanni – the reed section of the beater that beats the weaving in between each passing of the shuttle.…
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Textiles in Depth: Handloom Weaving in India, Part one
I have just returned from a month long trip to India, three and a half years after my last trip. After a few days of settling into a very different time zone, climate and pace of life, I soon felt quite at home, the places and people I visited seeming as familiar as if I’d seen them only a few weeks before. A busy schedule and little access to the internet meant I couldn’t blog about the trip as I went, so this is the start of a series of blog posts in which I will write about my encounters with various textile artisans – this time mainly weavers, as…
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Made in Mexico: The Rebozo in Art, Culture and Fashion
Made in Mexico, the Rebozo in Art, Culture and fashion at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London displays the traditional woven shawl or scarf of Mexico in a variety of contexts and designs. The exhibit fits well with the distinctive vibrant and colourful style of founder Zandra Rhodes and the building’s fuscia pink exterior. I’ve always loved the textiles of Mexico and so was keen to see what this exhibition had to offer. Embedded in the humble rebozo is the rich culture of Mexico and the story of the person wearing it. It reflects the long and rich history of Mexican textiles that date back hundreds of years before the Spanish conquest,…
