Kantha – Embroidery from the cradle to the grave!

We’ve all encountered a kantha – be it saree, dupatta, suit, cushion or blanket. But a little known fact that differentiate’s this eastern Indian tradition from several other embroidery crafts is that there lies a profound functionality behind it, for it was in it’s truest essence a craft tradition of the poor. Discarded textile scraps sewn together with a running stitch – the basic foundational block of needlework – to create something new. One of India’s oldest embroidery traditions, the … Read Full

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Deconstruction, Reconstruction: The Tale of Khesh Sarees

We’ve all heard of recycling and upcycling, recreating new garments with the old. Following the same principle, there exists an eclectic, beautiful textured handloom textile that is literally a saree recreated by scraps of older sarees! The process is fascinating yet simple…

The warp is with new yarn and the weft is with strips of thin cloth obtained by tearing old sarees length wise. For non textile experts, this simply means that long, thin strips of cloth cut from old Read Full

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The Jean Project: Bling-it-on with Upcycling

 I own and have accumulated probably as many as thirty pairs of jeans, being that annoying girl that eats a lot but never gets fat, still wearing the same waist size from high school. And I also own as many mass fashion Forever 21, Zara, or H&M denims as any of you. Then, doesn’t that make me a hypocrite for all the talk of being sustainable, turning to handlooms and handcrafted, and so on? 

Lets face it, not all of … Read Full

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The Jean Project: Sashiko!

Upcycled fashion is a chic, easy and significant step towards reducing the humongous tonnes of waste generated by the fashion industry every year. This series of posts titled “The Jean Project” captures different DIY projects to revamp denims and up their style quotient, saving a trip to the mall for yet another pair!

Experimenting with ripped denims this week, I mend the done-to-death gaping holes in my jeans with a fun spin on an ancient Japanese embroidery technique called SashikoRead Full

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