Handloom Weaving

As a weaver who has threaded several warps, I can truly appreciate the laborious and detailed work that goes into making a handloom textile. Because of its intricate nature, many weavers who are one of few keeping long-standing traditions alive find themselves without work since industrialized machine looms produce fabric faster and cheaper. In the past, I’ve worked with independent weavers in India who make mashru and ikat fabric, just two of hundreds of types of indiegenous weaving techniques.

Mashru is a traditional satin weave fabric that has a beautiful silky sheen and often comes in bold colored stripes. Consisting of cotton on the inside, and silk threads on the outside, it was really made with a particular function in mind. While the silk on the outer surface gives a luxurious, glossy appearance, the cotton yarns in the back soak up sweat and keep the wearer cool in the hot climate of the deserts. Mashru means “permitted” in Arabic and it is believed that this textile got it’s name when Muslim men, who were not allowed to wear silk, started wearing this fabric. Since the body is only in contact with cotton, and silk is only on the exterior.

Resist-dyeing of warp threads before weaving is known as ikat, a process historically associated with indigo dye in many cultures (South America and Asia). Ikat woven textiles have a slightly off-centered or scratchy effect on the pattern, since weaving is done after the pattern is created on the warp. In our collections, we have sourced and used traditional cotton ikat fabrics from Guatemala and India, and collaborated with ikat weavers and dyers in Sumba, Indonesia on a fine art piece (with all profits going to the weavers). Sumbanese ikats are created with very fine threads, three natural dye colors (morinda red, indigo blue, and cream), and is an extremely time consuming art. This video below shows the natural dyeing and ikat weaving processes traditional to Sumba.

Sumbanese Ikat Weaving and Natural Dyeing

This latest season, with Oshadi in Erode, India, we produced a multicolor handloom weave with 100% organic cotton.. Many intricate processes were used by master artisans to set up a 60-inch wide warp in my design with four different plant-dyed yarns. I created a woven design to really showcase each of the colors by overlapping tones of the warp and weft resulting in several different shades. I designed it so that there would be some areas in the final fabric with large squares of solid color, to create a color-blocking effect in the garments. Stripes of rainbow lurex were also incorporated into the weave, to further achieve a psychedelic effect. You can shop these new limited edition handloom pieces now below.