Understanding and bringing Indian techniques into today's fashion

We have produced in India since 2010, and what comes up most with our clients is the know-how. India keeps techniques few countries still do by hand. Here are five of them: their history, the time they take, and a French brand that leans on each one. Enough to know what to bring into a collection, and at what cost in time.

Handloom weaving (and zari)

The handloom existed long before industrial mills. In India it carries a political history: in the 1920s, Gandhi made it the symbol of khadi, cotton spun and woven by hand, against imported cloth. Zari is the golden metallic thread, worked since the Mughal era in Varanasi and Surat.

The time: a weaver produces about 4 to 5 metres of khadi a day. A weave loaded with zari takes days, sometimes weeks for a single piece. It's slow, and you feel it in the hand.

On the French side, Jamini, founded in Paris by Usha Bora, works handwoven khadi with artisan cooperatives, a large majority of them women. The detail on materials is in our article on Indian fabrics for ready-to-wear.

Block print (hand block printing)

Block print is done with a carved wood block, stamp after stamp. The historic homes are Rajasthan and Gujarat, around Bagru and Sanganer. The technique crossed the seas: 18th-century French "indiennes" mills were already copying these printed cottons from India.

The time: carving a block takes several days. In printing, each colour has its own block, placed by hand and aligned to the millimetre. A three-colour motif means three passes per metre.

Jamini block-prints from Rajasthan on its linens and clothing. We detail our own methods in the article on our printing techniques.

Zardozi embroidery (metallic thread)

Zardozi is embroidery in metallic thread, Persian in origin, brought to its peak in the Mughal courts under Akbar. The embroiderer works flat on a wooden frame, the adda, laying the gold thread point by point. The relief is thick, the result precious.

The time: a loaded piece runs into hundreds of hours. For its Mumbai show in 2023, the house of Dior had the Chanakya atelier embroider a backdrop of 35,000 hours of work, and a golden tiger blazer in zardozi. One of its couture sets took 480,000 hours of hand embroidery.

That double skill, craft and industry, is what sets Indian workshops apart. We talk about it in clothing manufacturing in India.

Chikankari (white embroidery from Lucknow)

Chikankari is white-on-white embroidery, born in Lucknow and tied to the Mughal court. It's worked by hand on light fabrics: cotton, muslin, organdy. The design stays discreet, almost in shadow, and that's the whole point: from afar you see a texture, up close an embroidered garden.

The time: a hand-embroidered kurta takes from a few weeks to several months, depending on the density of the motif. Every stitch is set by needle, no machine.

In France, Antik Batik, founded in 1992, built its wardrobe on Indian hand embroidery and worked white cottons. On the place of this slow work in today's fashion, see our thoughts on tomorrow's fashion.

Ikat (resist-dyed weaving)

Ikat dyes the yarn before weaving it. The pattern is in the thread, not laid on top, which gives it that soft blur at the edges. In India, two homes: Pochampally in Telangana, and the patola of Gujarat, a double ikat once reserved for royal families.

The time: tying and dyeing the yarn takes weeks. A patola in double ikat, where both warp and weft are dyed, runs into months for a single piece.

Ikat stays a niche know-how in Europe, sought precisely for that blur no print reproduces. It's a fabric for statement pieces, not for volume. The overview of available fabrics is in our article on Indian fabrics for ready-to-wear.

Bringing these techniques in, concretely

Each technique has its time and its minimum. Hand embroidery and custom weaving push up lead times and MOQ, block print stays more flexible. We always start from a prototype approved before the run. The detail on minimums is in our article on MOQ.

Have a style or a reference in mind? Send us the sketch, the fabric you want and the quantity. We come back with a real price and a lead time. See also our work.