The mountains of North India are a perfect getaway from the bustle, pollution and heat of the cities. And you can easily reach them from Delhi. I travelled up to the small village of Kasiyalekh in the Himalayan foothills, in the state of Uttarakhand to visit a social enterprise called Kumaun Grameen Udyog (KGU). I took a 5 hour train from Delhi to Kathgodam (you can go from here or the near-by larger town of Haldwani) and then a bus which skillfully wound its way up the steep and narrow lanes running up the mountain for about three and a half hours. I was greeted at the bus stop at…
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Kharad Weaving of Kachchh
A display of geometic and pictorial patterned dhurries adorns the walls of weaver Tejsibhai Dhana Marwada in the village of Sanjotnagar, near Bhuj in Kutch,. Woven into the kharad (Sindhi word for carpet) on the most basic and ancient of looms, are the stories of these weavers’ lives and experiences. Some of these narrative pieces were initiated by Carole Douglas for her exhibition Zindagi jo Vanat – The Weave of Life. Tejsi explained to us the stories depicted in the pieces. One tells of the Marwada Meghwal community migration. They came to Kachchh from Marwad in Rajasthan about 600 years ago, hence their name Marwada which accords a sustained sense…
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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 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,…
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Paisley and the Pashmina
On my way back from a recent trip to Scotland, I stopped in Paisley near Glasgow to visit its Museum which features a permanent exhibition on what the town is most famous for – shawl weaving. The well known Paisley pattern was named after the small town near Glasgow that adopted the tradition of weaving Paisley Pashmina shawls, providing a cheaper version of the shawls being brought from Kashmir by the East India Company and later by soldiers returning from the colony. Manufacturers caught on to the huge popularity in Britain. Paisley was not the first to start weaving these shawls, Norwich was the first to produce the shawls followed…
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Wool House at Somerset House
As I sit looking out at the miserable grey sky and snow coming down horizontally, almost blizzard like, I wish I could be sitting cosily in the ‘mammoth chair’ or in one of the rooms decorated completely using wool in the Wool House exhibition at Somerset House. The exhibition was curated and styled by Arabella McNie for The Campaign for Wool. The campaign was launched in 2010 by Patron HRH The Prince of Wales to ‘unite the international textile industry to promote real wool as the superior natural and sustainable fibre for fashion, interiors and the built environment’ (exhibition leaflet). On entering the expansive and impressive courtyard of Somerset House,…
